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BRITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 



BRITAIN'S CIVILIAN 
VOLUNTEERS 



AUTHORIZED STORY OF BRITISH VOLUNTARY 

AID DETACHMENT WORK IN THE 

GREAT WAR 



BY 

THEKLA BOWSER, F.J.I. 

Serving Sister of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem 




NEW YORK 

MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY 

1917 



Copyright, 1917, by *Gj 7 -B^ 

MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY 



MAY I7J9I7 ■ 

Published May, 1917 



0CLA467O16 



/ 



FOREWOED 

HISTORY must needs record with what splen- 
did devotion the women of the warring na- 
tions, nobles and peasants, rich and poor, shoulder 
to shoulder, like members of one stricken family, 
have united in their endeavour to relieve suffering 
humanity. 

The war has clearly demonstrated that whilst 
women have been eager and willing to use the 
greatest gift which God has bestowed upon them — 
the desire to render service — such service only 
reached its maximum of efficiency in organised 
effort. 

I fear that any attempt on my part to do justice 
to one of the finest examples of organised effort — 
the Voluntary Aid Detachments — must needs be 
inadequate, partly because there was never a 
period when publicity was so little sought and 
when so much that was fine and generous was done 
so quietly. But those of us who have taken any 
active part in the service of the Red Cross know 
that wherever the task was hardest and the danger 
greatest there was always to be found a member 
of the Voluntary Aid Detachments not only will- 
ing but thoroughly prepared to carry out her al- 
lotted duties. 



vi FOEEWOED 

These trained bands of women established be- 
fore the war in every town, nay, practically in 
every village, of Great Britain were one of our 
greatest national assets and of practical use to 
our Allies. 

When it became necessary to stafE the small 
hospitals tucked away in the hills of Britain or to 
provide orderlies to face the horrible, indescrib- 
able conditions existing in a Serbian typhus hos- 
pital, the preference was given in every instance 
to the women of the Voluntary Aid Detachments. 
We knew that whilst acquiring a good general 
working knowledge each member had specialised 
in some branch of the Eed Cross work and that 
she had been required to use her best endeavours 
to keep herself in perfect physical condition. Not 
only were the women skilled and healthy, but they 
had learned the value of obedience to orders. It 
was that very discipline which prepared them to 
face the monotony of home service, to confront 
the dangers abroad, and even, when called on, to 
sacrifice their lives. 

Madge Neill Fraser, the golf champion, was one 
of the first women of the Voluntary Aid Detach- 
ments to lay down her life with the Scottish Wom- 
en's Hospitals in Serbia. 

In a tobacco factory at Nish — ^where one thou- 
sand Serbian typhus patients were crammed into 
rooms less than twelve feet high, with only slits 
in the walls for ventilation, straw on the stone 



FOEEWOED vii 

floor, on which the men flung themselves down in 
their filthy uniforms, whilst on stone benches 
around they sat in a state of torpor waiting, just 
waiting, for one of their comrades to die that they 
might take his place — two of the women went of 
their own free will and died endeavouring to save 
the life of a stricken comrade. Dr. Elizabeth Eoss. 
When the news of their deaths reached England 
in fifteen days 500 members of the Voluntary Aid 
Detachments volunteered to replace them. 

It required not only courage but physical 
strength when, during the Eoumanian retreat, the 
women patched up a bridge under fire and brought 
across it over one hundred ambulances laden with 
helpless men. Not so spectacular, but equally 
creditable, was the action of those women, trained 
to economy, who, following in the rear of the 
retreating Eoumanian troops, gathered up and 
piled on to their transport wagons the food that 
had been abandoned, so that later, coming on a 
band of starving soldiers, they were prepared to 
feed them. 

No less brave, certainly as useful, are those 
women who day after day cook, sew and scrub. 
Theirs is the quiet heroism of carrying ont a 
tedious daily task, finding consolation in the reali- 
sation that their labour forms part of a perfect 
whole, a thoroughly well organised institution 
under whose care human wrecks are rebuilt and 
sent forth clothed, comforted and healed. 



viii FOEEWOED 

Not only have the Voluntary Aid Detachments 
rendered splendid service to the Armies; they 
have also taken into their tender care the civilians 
and refugees. There must be thousands of Bel- 
gian and Serbian women who know that they owe 
their own and their children's lives to these capa- 
ble and devoted women. 

I have been asked whether I believe it possible 
for the women of America to found a Society simi- 
lar in its objects and organisation to the Volun- 
tary Aid Detachments. I answer, without hesi- 
tation, that, building on the basis of our experi- 
ence, the American women will not only equal but 
probably surpass the work we have accomplished. 

On my mission of mercy across this great Con- 
tinent, from North to South and East to West, I 
have found that in most instances my success was 
due to the eager and efficient co-operation of the 
women in each city. I have been more than favor- 
ably impressed by the splendid working systems 
of the Civic Federations, the Women's Clubs, the 
great colleges and girls' schools in this land. If 
the women of America would turn their genius 
for organization to the support of the National 
League for Woman's Service, within six months 
there would be existing in every city, town and 
village a band of skilled women prepared to face 
and deal with any local disaster or national crisis. 

I feel certain that as members of a great demo- 
cratic nation the American women realise that it 



FOREWOED ix 

is a duty to train to serve the eommunity as a 
whole. Whilst to those who willingly shoulder 
new responsibilities there will come the perfect 
happiness that alone is found in service and the 
knowledge that 

"The riches of a commonwealth 
Are clear strong minds and hearts of health. 
And more to her than gold or gain 
The cunning hand and cultured brain." 

Kathleen Bueke. 

Santa Barbara, California, March 26, 1917. 



INTEODUCTION 

WHEN the Voluntary Aid Organisation was 
first set up as part of the Territorial 
Army Scheme in the year 1909, a number of men 
and women in various Counties joined the new 
Organisation at once and began to prepare them- 
selves for the work which it was intended to carry 
out. They suffered the usual fate of pioneers, 
and like the Volunteers in mid- Victorian times, 
were subjected to more or less good-natured ridi- 
cule. The War has changed all that. In the first 
part of the year 1914 not many people knew what 
the letters **V.A.D." stood for, — now these three 
letters are universally recognised and honoured. 
Wherever work has to be done for the sick and 
wounded either at home or abroad in any one of 
the numerous War Zones where our men are 
fighting, there the V.A.D. Member will be found 
helping the trained nurse in her work of mercy. 
It is especially gratifying to know that the 
trained nurses themselves, who at the beginning 
of the War looked with some misgivings upon the 
admission of partially trained women into the 
Hospitals, are now the first to recognise that 
these women have **made good'' and have loyally 
and efficiently assisted them in their task. The 

zi 



xii INTRODUCTION 

V.A.D. Members, both men and women, have 
every reason to be proud of their record, and I 
am glad when any book such as this is written 
which will help the public to a fuller knowledge 
of their work. 

Arthue Stanley. 
Chairman, 

Joint War Committee of the 
British Red Cross Society and 
The Order of St. John. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTXB PAGE 

Foreword v 

Introduction . . . . . xiii 

I. Paying a Debt 1 

n. History of the V.A.D. Movement 8 

III. The Formation of V.A. Detach- 
ments 17 

lY. The Joining of Two Great Cor- 
porations 23 

V. The Arrival of Wounded at 

Southampton .... 33 

VI. V.A.D. Work in and Around 

Birmingham 45 

VII. V.A.D. Work in Manchester and 

District . . . . . .60 

VIIL The Bombardment of a V.A.D. 

Hospital 74 

IX- V.A.D. Work in the South . . 84 

X. Some of the Work in London . 92 

XI. Air Eaid and Other Duties . . 106 

XII. V.A.D. Work in Ireland ... 118 

xiii 



xiv CONTENTS 

CHAPTXR PAOK 

Xni. V.A.D. Work in the Sinn Fein 

ElOTS 



XIV. V.A.D. Work in France . 

XV. Eed Cross and St. John Hospitals 

IN France 151 

XVI. Eest Stations in France . . 164 

XVII. Detention Hospitals in France . 196 

XVIII. Motor V.A.D. Units in France . 202 

XIX. Hostels in France .... 206 

XX. V.A.D. Work in French Hospitals 215 

xxl canadla.n and overseas v.a.d. 

Work 227 



127 
145 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

V.A.D. Members in Hospital Work . Frontispiece 



7ACINO PAQK 



Group of V.A.D. Workers . . . . 2 

New Type of Ambulance 10 

Interior of Same Ambulance .... 18 

Type of a Large Number of Ambulances . 28 

Portable Motor Bath Car .... 40 

Motor X-Eay Car ...... 56 

Disinfectors Mounted on a Steam Lorry . 70 

View of the Interior 70 

St. John Litter 86 

St. John Litter Packed for Transport . . 86 

Motor Launch Sent to Mesopotamia . . 102 

Lady Superintendent-in-Chief 's Indoor Uni- 
form 128 

Outdoor Uniform of a Lady Superintendent- 

in-Chief 142 

Outdoor Uniform of a Commandant of 

V.A.D 158 

Lady District Officer's Uniform . . . 174 
Nursing Sister's and V.A.D. Member's In- 
door Dress 190 

Men's Uniforms ....... 216 



BRITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 



BRITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

CHAPTER I 
Paying a Debt 

THE Great "War has revealed many national 
truths never even suspected before it burst 
upon the world, but amongst all its surprises 
none has been greater than that provided by the 
success of the Voluntary Aid Detachment Move- 
ment. The originators of the scheme knew that 
they were setting on foot a necessary bit of ma- 
chinery that must be well oiled and kept in run- 
ning repair during peace time, so that it might 
work smoothly when war came ; but they did not 
know that they were giving birth to an organisa- 
tion that was to do more for the bringing to- 
gether of all classes of society — a real and splen- 
did Socialism that has no connection with the 
men or women who belong to Socialistic Societies 
— than any other movement has ever achieved. 

The common sorrow of wives and mothers, who 
have lost their dear ones, has done a great deal 
towards this end; but the rich woman, in her 
palatial home, grieves for her equally stricken 
sister in a slum, rather than with her. On the 



2 BRITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

other hand, the Voluntary Aid Detachment au- 
thorities, in insisting on one uniform and the 
same conditions of work for rich and poor, cul- 
tured and uncultured, have set up a standard — 
lofty because of its aim, but lowly in actual fact 
— ^which all members must attain without favour. 

** Punch'' put his finger on the pulse of the 
situation when he illustrated the raw little Cock- 
ney girl, speeding up a member of the aristocracy 
with some such remark as this : **Nar then, Lady 
Halexandra, juist you 'urry with washing hup 
them plates and look sharp abaart it." 

It was a picture true to life, and in trying to 
put down on paper a record of what the British 
V.A.D. organisation has done since the war com- 
menced, the spirit of this incident will be shewn 
again and again, under many guises. 

In our great cities the effect of all classes work- 
ing together has been excellent; but it is in the 
County towns and the villages that the good re- 
sults have been most marked. The Squire's wife 
or daughter, having belonged to a V.A.D. per- 
haps before war broke out, instantly offered her 
services. Girls serving behind a counter equally 
with factory girls and workers of every grade, 
also being anxious to do something for th^ir 
country, joined a Detachment (if not already 
members), whilst men of every class, who were 
not joining the Army, threw in their lot with the 
V.A.D. in their town. Thus it came about that 




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PAYING A DEBT 3 

in the early months of the war men and women 
of all kinds met together to clean down houses 
that were to be turned into Hospitals, to act as 
motor drivers, orderlies — anything and every- 
thing — ^without the slightest consideration being 
given to their rank in life. 

A curious thing happened in a great Hotel 
which was turned into a Hospital at a very few 
hours' notice. A late manager and part pro- 
prietor of the Hotel, who had recently retired and 
was living in the town, offered to help, and was 
put to sweeping down the great staircase after 
the heavy carpets had been removed. He had 
never wielded a broom in his life and was strug- 
gling with it, not too successfully, when a senior 
orderly taunted him with not getting on with his 
job. The pseudo-manager wheeled round at the 
sound of the voice and then, for the first time, the 
two men saw each other's faces. The Senior 
Orderly had been a porter in the Hotel for many 
years ! 

No other circumstances could have brought 
about such a true understanding and apprecia- 
tion of class for class as this common task has 
done. Work carried out by educated, cultured 
men and women in the slums of our great cities, 
admirable as it is, cannot be the same, because 
there the more fortunate people are doing acts 
of kindness, if not of charity, for those worse off 
than themselves. In the present voluntary work 



4 BRITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

the Duchess and the factory girl, the over-mili- 
tary-aged aristocrat and the under-military-aged 
errand boy join hands to do something for the 
men who are saving our Empire from destruction. 
It is not only a common foe, a common cause, but 
a common chord of love and tenderness that has 
been touched, and the response has been eager, 
generous, grateful. 

There is no question of kindness or of charity. 
It is the paying of a great debt, a mere matter 
of common honesty, a privilege beyond price. 
The highest privilege goes to the man who may 
fight his country's battles, give his life for his 
King, risk living a maimed man to the end of 
his days ; next comes the privilege of being of use 
to these men who are defending us and all we 
love. 

During one of the great pushes, whilst I was 
working in France amongst our wounded men as 
they came down from the firing line to the Base, 
they often said to me, *^How good you Sisters 
are to us," and I, with a catch in my throat, al- 
ways made one reply. **Good — ^not a bit of it. 
Where should we Englishwomen be to-day if it 
were not for such as youT' Work as we may, 
sacrifice our comforts, our pleasures, even our 
health, we non-fighters can never come within 
sight of paying our debt to the men who have 
borne the heat and the burden of the day. 

What is a ^^V.A.D.r' 



PAYING A DEBT 5 

There is, only too often, a misconception about 
V.A.D. members. Many people seem to think 
that a V.A.D. member must be a woman. In fu- 
ture chapters I hope to show very clearly the 
wonderful work that has been done by men mem- 
bers, but at the very outset I want my readers to 
understand that in speaking of V.A.D. members 
I am referring as much to men as to women, and 
in fact the numbers of men's V.A. Detachments 
run very close to the numbers of women's 
V.A. Detachments. People persist in talking of 
*'V.A.D.'s" as though that was the official name 
for women Eed Cross workers. It is entirely 
wrong, first because a V.A.D. is a Detachment and 
not a person, and secondly a V.A.D. member may 
be, equally, either a man or a woman. Many 
fully trained nurses are members of V.A. Detach- 
ments. 

The Joint V.A.D. Committee, which has abso- 
lute control of every detail of the work, at home 
and abroad, is composed of equal numbers of 
members of the British Red Cross Society, the 
Ambulance Department of the Order of St. John 
of Jerusalem, and the Territorial Force Associa- 
tion. 

The labours of V.A.D. members have few limits 
nowadays. Men and women, belonging to V.A. 
Detachments, are to be met, not only in every 
corner of the great British Empire, but also in 
many foreign lands, and they will be found to be 



6 BEITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

doing every kind of national work, from the hum- 
blest of scrubbing and cleaning to the highest 
skilled work in nursing and in administration. It 
is a vast task which I have undertaken, in mak- 
ing even an endeavour to show something of what 
the movement has accomplished and is now ac- 
tually doing, but I am quite aware that I cannot 
possibly cover every branch of V.A.D. activity 
and I trust my readers will be lenient, whilst I 
shall be content if I can give a general impres- 
sion of what V.A.D. members are doing at this 
crisis in the affairs of the world. 

All that I write must be taken simply as being 
** typical," for to give an account of each and 
every V.A.D. effort would mean occupying a 
miniature British Museum Library. 

The work is so colossal that it is appallingly 
difficult to pick and choose as to which shall be 
mentioned and which left out, but, after travel- 
ling many thousands of miles in Great Britain, 
in order to see V.A.D. Units at work, and spend- 
ing nearly a year in France as a V.A.D. member 
myself, it seems to me that the way that would 
be most fair would be to make a general scheme 
and try to give some impression of what I have 
been privileged to see. Having been qualified in 
First Aid for over fifteen years, a V.A.D. mem- 
ber ever since the movement was initiated, and 
a war worker from the day war broke out, I have 



PAYING A DEBT 7 

had peculiar chances of knowing the inner side 
of the work. 

It was only after my return from France and 
whilst I was still an invalid that I thought again 
of taking up my long-idle pen and of attempting 
to set down some of the actual facts of V.A.D. 
work and its ramifications. Had I known the 
gigantic dimensions of the task I was undertak- 
ing, my heart must have failed me, for I had no 
idea of how far the threads of the Voluntary Aid 
Movement had stretched throughout our Empire. 
I can only plead for leniency from my readers 
and to beg them to try and *'read between the 
lines'' of all the great work, the marvellous 
achievements and the unselfish devotion which 
have been displayed by the organisers and work- 
ers, of which I can but give some glimpse in these 
pages. Every individual V.A.D. member who 
reeds this record may well thrill with pride at the 
fact that he or she has been allowed to partici- 
pate in this great work of patriotism. 



CHAPTER n 

History of the V.A.D. Movement 

THE story of the Voluntary Aid Detachment 
movement is a very romantic one, although 
the majority of people only see its wonderful util- 
ity and versatility, and have some faint under- 
standing of what it has done for the nation since 
war broke out. The ordinary citizen knows that his 
daughter has worked, as she never worked in her 
life before, in this or that Hospital or at a Rest 
Station perhaps, and that she has faced hard- 
ships and even dangers abroad with indomitable 
pluck; but he does not realise the extent of the 
work; nor does he know that this same thing, 
which he sees in his own town, is going on in 
Egypt, in Malta, in Canada, in India, in South 
Africa, and in Australia, to say nothing of the 
hundreds of women who are doing fine work be- 
hind the firing line in France. 

Although there are thousands of members of 
V.A. Detachments throughout the United King- 
dom, and indeed throughout the British Empire, 
there are comparatively few of the general pub- 
lic who really understand how the movement was 
first started or what it has accomplished since 

8 



THE V.A.D. MOVEMENT 9 

its inception. The work of First Aid and Home 
Nursing was for many years in the hands of the 
St. John Ambulance Association, originally (in 
1877-78) started to form a civilian reserve to 
the Army Medical Department in time of war, 
this organisation having arranged for classes to 
be held all over the country ; in consequence many 
thousands of men and women knew the rudiments 
of these arts. Then came the St. John Ambu- 
lance Brigade, which was an outcome of the As- 
sociation, the members of which undertook, vol- 
untarily, public duty on public occasions. But 
all this later work was for civilians and not espe- 
cially for war. 

During the South African war, the St. John 
Ambulance Brigade supplied some 2,000 men as 
orderlies, 70 of whom lost their lives : but at that 
time there was no thought of utilising for war 
work the women who belonged to the Brigade 
or to the Association. In 1905 the British Red 
Cross Society was founded, and it received its 
royal charter in 1908. Of course the fundamental 
object of this society was to supply aid for home 
defence during war time, and it did not encroach 
on the civilian work which had been done for 
many years by the St. John Ambulance Brigade. 
Then there arose a feeling that Great Britain 
should emulate other countries in forming some 
sort of V.A.D. organisation, and with the con- 
sent of the War Office schemes were worked out 



10 BRITAIN ^S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

in 1909 and 1910 which, with but comparatively 
few alterations, are adhered to to-day. 

Few people realise that the V.A. Detachments 
are a supplement to the Territorial Medical 
Service. At the time when this scheme was 
started a great many Voluntary Aid Societies 
were already in existence; but they had no con- 
nection with one another, and thus, in acting in- 
dependently, frequently overlapped. It was a 
wise and sensible idea, therefore, that Voluntary 
Aid should be co-ordinated. It was thought well 
that the county system, which had been followed 
by the Territorial Force, should be adopted; and 
it has proved to be an excellent one, as each 
county has its own director who has supreme 
control of all the Detachments in his district, 
whilst each Detachment is complete in itself, and 
can undertake distinct pieces of work as separate 
units. 

The medical organisation of the Territorial 
Force was sufficiently complete to provide medi- 
cal establishments and units which must accom- 
pany troops. It also provided general hospitals, 
but it lacked such units as clearing hospitals, sta- 
tionary hospitals, ambulance trains, and other 
formations. The regular army, of course, had 
all these units ; but it was easy to see that, should 
occasion arise for the Territorial Force to be 
enormously increased, there would come the ne- 
cessity for a great many extra medical units ; and 




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THE V.A.D. MOVEMENT 11 

although the pioneers of the V.A.D. scheme could 
scarcely have anticipated such an overwhelming 
need as has arisen during these war years, they 
certainly showed extraordinary prescience in pro- 
viding an organisation which could be expanded 
to a limitless extent. 

In that early scheme it was settled that 
amongst the labours which the Detachments must 
be able to undertake were such as providing food 
and dressings for improvised ambulance trains, 
making rest stations where these trains could 
halt, running private hospitals and convalescent 
homes. In short, the scheme was devised with 
the object of giving to those members of the 
civilian population who, from motives of patriot- 
ism and sympathy for the sick and wounded, 
wished to help opportunities of offering their 
services for the performance of such duties. It 
was realised that the members must be trained 
particularly in the art of improvisation, because 
their work would be pre-eminently that of coping 
with emergencies. The members must be capa- 
ble of filling all sorts of odd niches which the 
regular medical services cOuld not afford to do. 

Should the strain of a great war come upon 
our country, trained nurses would have their 
hands full, and their skill must not be wasted; 
but these members, who would not be untrained, 
but trained in a different way, must be willing 
to do. all the smaller tasks, build, improvise, be 



12 BEITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEEES 

capable of making **the best of a bad job," and, 
above all, accept discipline unquestionably; in 
short they must set forth to do the lowliest task 
from the highest motive. This was the lofty 
ideal which lay behind the V.A.D. organisation, 
and I need not say how well it has been carried 
out. Highly educated women have learnt to scrub 
floors, to labour with their hands, to undertake 
disagreeable duties, with no thought of fame or 
glory, but simply for the sake of sharing in the 
huge fight which has been thrust upon the British 
Empire. 

It was laid down that members must learn how 
to prepare country carts and other vehicles for 
the removal of stretcher cases, must be capable 
of the improvising of stretchers, and the conver- 
sion of houses, public buildings, and railway sta- 
tions into temporary Hospitals. 

For the sake of convenience the Detachments 
were called Voluntary Aid Detachments, there 
being two classes, one of men and the other of 
women; and it was decided that various bodies, 
approved by the War Office, should raise Detach- 
ments, each of which must be officially numbered 
by the War Office. 

Before applicants could be full members of any 
Detachment, they had to pass the examinations 
of recognised bodies approved by the War Office, 
the chief of these being the St. John Ambulance 
Association and the British Red Cross Society, 



THE V.A.D. MOVEMENT 13 

the University of London, King's College for 
Women, and the Church Lads' Brigade. 

At first it was arranged that only the certifi- 
cates of the St. John Ambulance Association 
should be accepted; but as tim,e went on and 
other recognised bodies held examinations which 
were up to the same standard, it was felt that 
it would facilitate things if they were also ac- 
cepted. In many instances, this has been a real 
convenience to people wishing to join a Detach- 
ment; but the large proportion of certificates 
given throughout the country still belongs to the 
Ambulance Department of the Order of St. John 
or the British Eed Cross Society. 

The V.A.D. idea was enthusiastically taken up 
by many prominent men who knew the needs of 
Eed Cross work in war time. 

The scheme was got through very quickly and 
Detachments were formed. The British Eed 
Cross Society Detachments at once registered 
themselves as V.A. Detachments, being given a 
W.O. number, and the majority of the divisions 
of the St. John Ambulance Brigade and Associa- 
tion also registered themselves, thus becoming an 
official part of the Eed Cross organisation of 
Great Britain. 

It was a clever thought on the part of someone 
in authority to keep the odd numbers for male 
Detachments and the even numbers for female 



14 BRITAIN ^S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

Detachments. This fact led to amusing results 
recently when a bewildered lady went to see a 
British Red Cross official and was asked the num- 
ber of her Detachment. On giving it she was 
courteously told that it could not possibly be that, 
whereon she dashed at another number and yet 
another, each time the smiling official assuring 
her that she must be wrong. **But how do you 
know?" gasped the poor lady, who was very new 
to the work. It was, of course, quite simple, since 
in every case she had mentioned odd numbers ! 

It is true that an enormous number of Detach- 
ments have been formed since the war began, but 
they have been built on the solid rock of knowl- 
edge and experience which were the foundation 
stones of the Detachments formed in 1910 and 
the years following. At first the St. John Am- 
bulance Brigade and the British Red Cross So- 
ciety held the ground almost exclusively; but in 
some places, where the Territorial Force Asso- 
ciation was a very alert body, Territorial V.A. 
Detachments already existed. 

Looking back on those years of peace, it is 
curious to remember the various stages of effi- 
ciency of the various units. Some Commandants 
were exceedingly up-to-date and in earnest over 
their work, their members taking a yearly ex- 
amination in First Aid and also eagerly attend- 
ing lectures and passing examinations in such 
relative subjects as field sanitation, hygiene, 



THE V.A.D. MOVEMENT 15 

laundry, and invalid cooking. These Detach- 
ments would make tremendous e:fforts to go into 
camp for a week or a fortnight during the sum- 
mer, when they lived the real camp life, cooking 
in field kitchens, building their own field incine- 
rators, and improvising hospital and transport 
equipment out of the most unpromising material. 

Other Detachments were content to meet occa- 
sionally for a medical lecture, and to scrape 
through the yearly inspection which was insisted 
upon by the War Office officials. This same dis- 
crepancy of standard existed throughout the 
United Kingdom and perhaps was the weak spot 
in the working out of the scheme. In the first 
years of the organisation, the political horizon 
was completely clear of war clouds, and a great 
deal of good-natured cha:ff was levelled at the 
members of Detachments who took their work 
seriously. It was very much easier for the De- 
tachments belonging to the St. John Ambulance 
Brigade to go forward with the work in hand, 
because, side by side with it, they were constantly 
called out for actual work for civilian purposes. 
Great credit must therefore be given to the De- 
tachments of the B.E.C.S. and other organisa- 
tions where a high standard of efficiency was de- 
manded by the Commandants, and attained. 

I very well remember paying a week-end visit 
to a camp of a B.R.C.S. Detachment in the July 
preceding the outbreak of war. Even then, 



16 BRITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

though the preliminary tragedy had happened in 
Austria, no one seriously contemplated that war 
would touch our own nation. A friend, looking 
at the strenuous work going on in the camp, said, 
**Why do they do HI They will never be needed 
for the real thing." Within a couple of months, 
that very Detachment was hard at work, and its 
years of patient endeavour bore fruit which was 
of incalculable benefit to the country. 



CHAPTER in 

The Formation of V.A. Detachments 

IT could have been no easy matter to settle on 
the exact formation of a Detachment; but 
again, it is remarkable that the scheme, has 
needed practically no alteration, and that in the 
printed papers first issued by the War Office the 
orders are almost identical with those which are 
in force to-day. The composition of men's De- 
tachments were: — 

One Commandant 
One medical officer 
One Quartermaster 
One pharmacist 
Four section leaders 
Forty-eight men. 

The women's Detachments were considerably 
smaller, and had only one Commandant (man or 
woman), one Quartermaster (man or woman), 
one Lady Superintendent (preferably a trained 
nurse), and twenty women, of whom four should 
be qualified as cooks. 

V.A.D.'s form part of the technical reserve. No 
Detachment could be registered at the War Office 

17 



18 BEIT AIM'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEEEB 

unless it had enrolled at least 70 per cent of the 
above complement. Detachments were invited to 
make a list of the equipment which they could 
promise to give in the event of necessity, and 
certainly a majority, if not all, had a certain 
amount of linen, beds, and hospital stores in re- 
serve. In the beginning it was supposed that the 
Detachments would only be used for home de- 
fence, in exactly the same way as the Territorials 
were not supposed to be sent abroad; but we all 
know how these ideas have been flung to the 
winds, and how eagerly the men of the Territorial 
Force and the members of the Detachments have 
sought for the honour of going abroad, the one 
to fight and the other to succour the sick and 
wounded. 

In the event of mobilisation, each member of 
a Detachment, when called up for service, was to 
be provided with an identity certificate, and was 
to wear, fixed to the left arm, an armlet or bras- 
sard with a red cross on a white ground, deliv- 
ered and stamped by a competent military au- 
thority. This, of course, was in conformity with 
the Geneva Convention, under which the Detach- 
ments work. No one is immune from attack from 
the enemy who does not wear the protecting sign 
of the international Eed Cross. 

It is curious how much ignorance exists on this 
point, and even to-day people do not understand 
that this simple red cross does not belong to any 





Interior of the new type St. John ambulance, a side view of which 
is shown in another illustration. 



THE V.A. DETACHMENTS 19 

one society, but is the right of every man and 
woman officially working for the wounded, pro- 
vided their country subscribed its name to the 
great Geneva Convention in 1906. Therefore, di- 
rectly a unit was mobilised by the War Office, its 
members had to be protected by being given the 
official sign of their work, and it was no idle re- 
mark that was made to a V.A.D. member when 
she was setting forth for France, ** Without your 
brassard you will not be safe from arrest for a 
single moment/' 

Unhappily the enemy has not played the game 
with regard to the laws of the Geneva Conven- 
tion, and it has even become a saying that the 
flying of the red cross is a positive attraction for 
bombs or for shell, instead of being a protection 
as was intended; but we can be proud of the 
fact that we have strictly kept to all the laws of 
the agreement made in Geneva. We know from 
first-hand knowledge that German wounded have 
been treated so well by our Eed Cross people that 
our own wounded have been tempted to be jealous 
of them, in a laughing kind of way. 

There have been some cruel cases of Germans 
turning upon the British man or woman who was 
dressing their wounds and attending to their 
needs; but we realise that the rank and file of 
the German army has been fed upon lies about 
us for many a long year, and that it is not the 
fault of the individual so much as of the system. 



20 BRITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEEES 

which has been carried out with wicked per- 
sistency in Germany. It is only fair to say, on 
the other hand, that there are instances when the 
German wounded have been really grateful: in 
one case I am speaking from personal experience, 
and in the other from first-hand knowledge. 

In this connection, I may say that Austrians, 
when taken prisoners, have shown themselves to 
be very different from the Germans ; and although 
I have had no personal dealings with them, I know 
from many friends who have worked on that part 
of the front that the Austrians made most excel- 
lent orderlies and were extremely courteous to 
the British people. A R.A.M.C. man lately back 
from the East said he had seen a Turk dress the 
wounds of an Englishman and then drag him 
back to the parapet of the British trenches, where 
he left him to be found by our men! 

It was at first thought that no uniform would 
be necessary for the members of Detachments, 
but that they would simply wear a distinctive 
brassard. This must not be confused with the 
brassard which is given after mobilisation. Dur- 
ing peace time, an armlet was worn, or rather a 
design to be put upon an armlet, on which ap- 
peared the registered number of the Detachment. 
This was worn on the left arm, and is still being 
worn by many members who are doing excellent 
work but have not been officially mobilised. The 
St. John Ambulance Brigade members, of course, 



THE V.A. DETACHMENTS 21 

already had their uniforms, and many of the 
B.R.C.S. Detachments were in uniform long be- 
fore the war broke out. A few Detachments 
under the St. John Ambulance Association and 
the Territorial Association were also uniformed ; 
but the majority of these had not thought it nec- 
essary to go to this expense. Since the war com- 
menced, all mobilised units have worn full uni- 
form of one sort or another. It has been a wise 
proceeding on the part of those who are at the 
head of the organisation to allow the Detach- 
ments to retain the distinctive uniforms of their 
own societies. In all cases members pay for their 
own uniforms and their incidental expenses, so 
that it would be ridiculous to expect them to pur- 
chase a particular V.A.D. uniform ; but it is prac- 
tically, with very few exceptions, confined now 
to the black and white or grey uniform of St. 
John or the blue uniform of the B.R.C.S. Quite 
recently there has been a change of cap, a small 
handkerchief cap having been universally adopted 
for V.A.D. members of all societies. 

To say that minor difficulties have not arisen 
between the various societies would be ridiculous ; 
but it is a very delightful fact that the members 
have worked together in much harmony through- 
out these strenuous years. Perhaps abroad, more 
than at home, the distinctiveness of societies has 
been lost sight of, and members have found the 
common cause of the wounded sufficient to round 



22 BRITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

off the little corners of individual preference ; to- 
gether they have thrown themselves into this 
labour of love — a labour which they truly con- 
sider to be one of the greatest honours which 
could fall to the lot of a British subject. 



CHAPTER IV 

The Joining of Two Geeat Coepoeations 

JUST as the two great rivers, the Ehone and 
the Arve, run side by side for many miles, 
without mingling, each keeping its distinctive 
colour and character, so for many years the two 
great Red Cross Corporations of Great Britain 
ran side by side without intimate relationship. 

The British Red Cross Society, which was ac- 
tually Incorporated by Royal Charter in 1908, 
was the outcome of the much older National So- 
ciety for Aid to Sick and Wounded in War, and 
was formed with one great object of rendering 
assistance to the country in the time of war. 

The other, The Ambulance Department of the 
Order of St. John of Jerusalem (incorporated 
again in 1888 on the ancient foundations laid by 
the Knights Hospitaller of St. John of Jerusalem 
who went forth to succour Christians in the 
Eleventh Century), worked all through the years 
of peace whilst giving extensive help during the 
South African War. The civilian work of the St. 
John Ambulance Brigade is comparatively little 
known, greatly because its members are enjoined 
to labour humbly and in silence, like their 
Knights of old, but thousands of men and women 

33 



24 BRITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

have worked (entirely voluntarily) in its ranks 
for the rendering of First Aid to the injured and 
the sick on all kinds of public occasions and have 
thus, unconsciously, been trained for the sad 
work which now has to be done by all Red Cross 
members. 

During the years of peace many of those in 
high authority in these Societies were closely in 
touch with one another, but the two organisations 
ran separately and individually. In 1910 the 
Voluntary Aid Detachment scheme was started 
and Detachments were registered from all over 
the country by both Societies and by the Terri- 
torial Force Association, but still there were no 
signs of commingling. 

When the great cloud burst and war was de- 
clared, thousands of V.A.D. members, men and 
women, sprang to attention, and rendered in- 
stantaneous and valuable services in divers direc- 
tions. The work devolving on the two Societies 
was prodigious and it can easily be realised that 
double labour was entailed because it was being 
done dually instead of singly. 

Slowly, at first, but surely, the two great rivers 
of mercy and tenderness converged, until in Oc- 
tober, 1914, they were officially joined in one huge 
stream of loving endeavour. Here is another out- 
come of war and no one can doubt that the join- 
ing together of these two powerful forces must 
make for strength, for charity and for supreme 



TWO GEEAT CORPORATIONS 25 

usefulness. Joined without either losing indi- 
viduality or identity, the Order of St. John and 
the British Red Cross have worked together for 
over two years with the greatest success. 

Thus, the calamity of war has created a bond 
of sympathy, not only between individuals, but 
between two powerful institutions. This is no 
time for petty quarrels, and whilst the country 
welcomes a national Government, the Military 
authorities and all who are interested in Red 
Cross work must be glad to see the union of two 
great Societies, which work with the object of giv- 
ing the very best help, the most skilled, the most 
efficient assistance, to every individual man who 
has been wounded or has become sick in the 
service of his country. 

The joining of the British Red Cross Society 
and the St. John Ambulance made whole, in the 
most beautiful sense, a wonderful chain of mercy, 
the links of which are composed of lofty and 
lowly tasks alike, given in humbleness of spirit 
and true gratitude by those who are denied the 
greatest honour of joining the King's fighting 
forces. 

Enough has been said of the birth of this won- 
derful voluntary movement, but before plunging 
into my task I would like to give some idea of 
the plan upon which I hope to work. First I want 
to give a picture, as I saw it, of the arrival in 



26 BRITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

England of our wounded men in Hospital ships 
and of their rapid transfer to Hospital trains. 
We will travel in one of these trains and will step 
oH (with thankfulness in our hearts that one has 
not to be carried on a stretcher like so many of 
our men) at several great centres and take 
a look at what is going on, say at Birmingham 
and at Manchester, since these are two of our 
largest cities. Then we will take a run down 
South and perhaps make a call on London on 
our way back, and must certainly board one of 
the North-going trains and see all the marvellous 
work that is going on on the South side of the 
Tweed. Lancashire must be peeped at and we 
will brave the perils of the Irish crossing and see 
for ourselves what V.A.D. workers did during the 
Sinn Fein riots and are doing for our wounded. 

Then from across the sea we must get news of 
the great work. That in France must hold first 
place amongst foreign fields and it will not be 
easy to get away from its fascination to give fair 
due to our men and women who are making 
V.A.D. history in Egypt, India, Malta and a dozen 
other parts of the Empire, whilst other valiant 
souls are giving urgently needed help to Serbians, 
Russians, Italians and all the other allied coun- 
tries. 

None of the reports can be exhaustive, but 
merely typical, and it must be remembered that 
what is actually written, about one place is true 



TWO GEEAT CORPORATIONS 27 

of a hundred others, for the spirit of emulation 
has been so strong, the devotion to duty so amaz- 
ing, that it would be absolutely untrue to say that 
members of any one Society had worked better 
than others, or that one Unit or any group of 
Units had surpassed others. In a few instances 
possibly, the standard of work is specially high, 
but in this book I do not intend to deal with ex- 
ceptions but with the average of the work, speak- 
ing individually of any one Unit only as being 
typical of a hundred Units, and giving names and 
places of the few only because they give point 
and meaning to the whole. A general report, ab- 
solutely vague, would lose all personality, but it 
fs for that reason only that any names are men- 
tioned and not because these Units are in any 
way better than their neighbours. 

The common cause has gripped the hearts of 
V.A.D. workers, whether they wear the blue uni- 
form of the British Red Cross Society or the grey 
of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem. It is fine 
to see that the spirit of entire impartiality, which 
has always pervaded the Joint Committee, has 
descended to the individual members of the Units, 
who realise that in their own hands — roughened 
with lowly toil — they hold the honour of the whole 
personnel of the voluntary Red Cross organisa- 
tion of Great Britain. 

Perhaps here I may quote the actual words of 
General Sir Arthur Sloggett, Director-General of 



28 BRITAIN ^S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

Medical Services. He says, ^*I have the highest 
admiration for them, for the V.A.D. members 
have performed their duty, and I have repeat- 
edly said that they are one of the great features 
of the Medical operations of the war and that we 
could not have got on without them.'' 

Worh at Headquarters. 

No more noble or self-sacrificing work is under- 
taken by any group of Voluntary Aid workers 
than that which entails daily attendance at Head- 
quarters for the carrying out of dull, routine, 
clerical work. 

Before the joining of the St. John Ambulance 
and the British Red Cross Society, the Head- 
quarters of the former, the ancient and historic 
St. John's Gate, Clerkenwell, was an extremely 
busy place, whilst the same thing could be said 
of the B.R.C.S. Headquarters. Very soon after 
the outbreak of war the Duke of Devonshire 
most generously offered the use of Devonshire 
House, his magnificent residence in Piccadilly, 
for the use of the Society, and later the fine 
premises of the Automobile Club, 83 Pall Mall, 
were also offered for the same purpose. Now 
that all British Red Cross work is under the con- 
trol of the Joint Committee it has been arranged 
that the various departments should have their 
permanent abodes at Pall Mall and Devonshire 
House. At the former there are the chiefs of all 




1=1 

< 

o 



7^ 



0) 
fcJO 






TWO GREAT CORPORATIONS 29 

the great departments wMch control the sending 
out of doctors, nurses, stores and the thousand 
and one items which are dealt with in such won- 
derful detail that complete efficiency is the re- 
sult, whilst at Devonshire House everything con- 
nected with the selection and appointment of 
women V.A.D. members is arranged for. 

A Peep at Devonshire House. 

The moment one enters the entrance hall, one 
is met by the hall orderly — a girl in uniform — 
who enquires your business and obtains audience 
for you, if possible, with the particular person 
you wish to see. At the back of the hall the 
Matron interviews every candidate for work in 
a Hospital and writes a report upon the appli- 
cant which is of great value to the selection 
Board. 

Upstairs, there is a series of rooms with con- 
necting doors. It is curious to see them filled 
with busy, methodical women in place of the gay 
crowds which one has seen there on enjoyment 
bent before the war. How many times Royalties 
have graced these very rooms with their presence 
at the great Ducal balls and gatherings; now in 
the place of the lilt of dance music there comes 
the hum of the typewriter, and instead of pretty 
speeches being made to fair maidens, girls, 
anxious to do their country's work, are looked at 
squarely, uncompromisingly by women who have 



30 BEITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEEES 

learned to sum up character and to sift the wheat 
from the chaff. 

First we enter the Filing Eoom where every- 
thing is filed which comes in and has any refer- 
ence to any girl or woman who applies for work 
under the Joint Committee. Then comes the 
Indexing Eoom where workers must have fully 
mastered the intricacies of filing, for here is kept 
a complete record of each applicant under vari- 
ous headings. All those who have passed the se- 
lection Board are pigeon-holed here and there is 
a fine reserve of workers who can be sent out at 
a moment's notice. By a clever system it can he 
seen exactly how many members are working in 
every hospital or in any capacity whatsoever, and 
if anyone gives notice she is leaving on a certain 
day a tab is dropped from the file to indicate that 
her place is to be filled on that day. The system 
is simplicity itself and works admirably. 

Members are working in Belgium, Egypt, 
Malta, Salonica, Eussia, Serbia, Eoumania and 
Italy, and each one has her place in this Index 
in Devonshire House. 

Then we come to what is known as the Central 
Index, but it is in fact the V.A.D. life-story of 
every member who has ever worked under the 
Eed Cross. Here all the records are centralised, 
as it were, put neatly in compact form but quite 
irrefutable, so that no arguments can arise as to 
what services have been rendered. It is a big 



TWO GREAT CORPORATIONS 31 

work, for there are thousands and thousands of 
nameis to be recorded, and everything must be 
kept up-to-date or the Record would be useless. 
Every girl who enters an Auxiliary Hospital at 
home or abroad has her record here, whilst in 
another room the same thing is done for those 
members who are at work in Miltary Hospitals. 

Uniform. 

The question of uniform is not an easy one to 
deal with, but there is a special department at 
Devonshire House where a little group of work- 
ers do nothing else but answer queries and settle 
small details. Perhaps it would be interesting to 
give a rough outline of the exact ranks and their 
correct V.A.D. uniforms. 

First there comes the Commandant-in- Chief, 
(Mrs. Furse). 

It was decided that St. John and British Red 
Cross members should keep to their original dis- 
tinctive colours, the former having always ad- 
hered to the colours of the Order of St. John of 
Jerusalem (black and white or grey), and the lat- 
ter to blue, white and red. 

There are various sta:ff appointments which 
come immediately in rank after Mrs. Furse, but 
I do not think it is necessary to mention them 
all in detail with the exception of Lady Perrott, 
Lady-Superintendent-in-Chief of the St. John 
Ambulance Brigade, and Lady Oliver, Mrs. Cane, 



32 BRITAIN ^S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

Mrs. Dakyn and Miss Crowdy. Then there are 
Commandants and Quartermasters to each De- 
tachment and the members. 

Downstairs there is the Stationery Room, in a 
bywater of the great house, but nevertheless a 
very important place, where every department 
goes for stationery and printed goods of all kinds. 

The Postoffice, too, perhaps, would seem to be 
a dull piece of work, but the members there have 
a busy time with entering up the hundreds of let- 
ters which are received and sent out, the wires 
and all the odds and ends which come under the 
term '*post." 

Devonshire House is a miniature of the greater 
offices at Pall Mall, but at both headquarters it 
is noticeable how methodically everything is car- 
ried out and on what a business footing every- 
thing is done. Probably nine out of ten of these 
voluntary workers are amateurs in so far that 
they have learned to do this work since the war 
began, but there is nothing amateurish about 
their methods for they have been drilled into 
efficiency by those who were themselves efficient. 
The work swings along at a fine pace, increasing 
day by day, but the workers cheerily shoulder 
their burdens with the same determination to 
**win through" which we see in our men, who go 
back again and again to the trenches with a smile 
upon their faces and a song upon their lips. 



CHAPTER V 

The Aerival. of Wounded at Southampton 

NOTHING more beautiful, nor yet more sad, 
can be seen than a Hospital ship, bringing 
to the homeland her load of broken humanity. 
My memory holds many ineffaceable war pic- 
tures, but of them all none is clearer than that 
of a great Hospital ship leaving Boulogne har- 
bour one winter 's evening. I was returning from 
leave, and the Channel boat had to lay aside to 
allow the ship of mercy to pass out from the 
French harbour. There was the background of 
the town, with myriads of dim lights gleaming 
on its many terraces, whilst from the blackness 
of the surrounding sea there shone out the huge 
red crosses, illumined by electric light, from the 
sides of the white ship, belted with a green band. 
From the dozens of portholes there streamed 
light, and from the decks. She was majestic, 
beautiful, elegant in her fine proportions, but she 
was a palace of pain at best, though the pain was 
mitigated by every possible care and comfort and 
above all by the knowledge that the ship was Eng- 
land-bound ! 
Day by day these ships come to the berth in 

33 



34 BEITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEEKS 

Southampton Docks and discharge their load. A 
very large number of the orderlies on them are 
members, either of St. John or British Eed Cross 
V.A. Detachments, but they are disguised by their 
R.A.M.C. uniforms. The Matron of one of the 
biggest Hospital ships said that she had found 
these men wonderful in their work, well-disci- 
plined, steady, willing and cheery. It is not a 
light nor a delightful task that falls to the share 
of the Ship-Orderly. 

**Last night we had a dreadfully rough pas- 
sage," said the matron, ^*and most of us were 
sick, even the orderlies and the doctors. But 
none of them gave in. Nearly all the patients too 
were sick and you can just imagine the amount 
of work it made for the orderlies." 

Yet in the morning they were all cheery as they 
lifted the stretchers and carried them along the 
narrow alleyways. The great saloon, which in 
by-gone days had been the scene of hundreds of 
festive meals, now accommodates row upon row 
of beds, whilst the steerage, cleaned and whitened 
in true ward-fashion, is a mass of beds, ranged 
in symmetrical lines. There are lifts from deck 
to deck and every contrivance has been thought 
of so that the patients may be moved comfortably 
and quickly. The ship's orderlies get the men 
ready for removal, the doctors and Sisters, of 
course, having done the dressings, and then there 
come aboard stretcher-bearer parties who take 



WOUNDED AT SOUTHAMPTON 35 

the patients off tlie ship and put them in the warm 
sheds on the berth or in the Hospital train. 

Here again we meet many V.A.D. workers 
though they wear the Army uniform and actually 
belong to the R.A.M.C. But enquire into their 
history and you will be surprised to find that a 
large percentage of them originally were mem- 
bers of a Bed Cross Detachment. It is a joy to 
see how well they lift the men, changing them 
from bed to stretcher with almost imperceptible 
movements. The gangway from ship to berth is 
covered in so that the patients are never for a 
moment in the open, and an R.A.M.C. officer is at 
hand to direct each stretcher party, either to a 
certain ward in the waiting Hospital train or to 
the sheds, warmed by electric stoves, where they 
are deposited for a short time. As far as pos- 
sible all patients are sent to Hospitals near to 
their homes ; this entails a lot of work but gives 
great joy to the men. 

From the very beginning of the war a wonder- 
ful labour of love and generosity has been car- 
ried out very quietly and unostentatiously by 
two girls. They actually belong, one to a British 
Eed Cross and the other to a St. John Detach- 
ment, but they started a special bit of work of 
their own and are steadfastly keeping to it. 

In those terrible weeks when the Belgian towns 
fell, one after the other, and Belgian wounded and 
refugees poured into England, Southampton was 



36 BRITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEEES 

the main landing-place, and helpers were needed 
to feed the poor, hungry people, who had been 
driven out of their country. Volunteers there 
were in plenty and for some time a canteen was 
run in the Docks. It was then that the Misses 
Tebbutt began to distribute chocolate and cigar- 
ettes to the Belgian soldiers. Whilst doing this 
they heard that there had arrived a Hospital 
ship laden with British wounded. They asked 
and gained permission from the dockyard mili- 
tary authorities to be allowed to give these small 
comforts to the British soldiers. 

Ever since that day these two girls have met 
each Hospital ship (with a very few exceptions) 
and have given a kindly greeting to our men. 
They do not wear uniform of any kind, and now 
they are the only women allowed on the berth, 
as the authorities had to keep very strictly to 
certain rules in order that the moving of the 
wounded should not be hindered in any way. 
The Misses Tebbutt have such excellent tact, as 
well as good organisation, that they never get *4n 
the way," giving their cheery greetings and their 
gifts after the men have been put in the sheds 
or in the train. They have had boxes made which 
carry several kinds of cigarettes and of chocolate, 
and they also have slung on to them a clever 
pouch with many pockets containing postcards, 
pencils, matches and newspapers. Not an officer 
or man is missed, but it often means quick work 



WOUNDED AT SOUTHAMPTON 37 

when two ships are in at the same time and each 
girl has to do a whole shipload of men. The en- 
tire cost of these gifts has been borne by the 
Misses Tebbutt and their friends, so that no pub- 
lic funds have been drawn upon for this splendid 
little welcome which is given to our men the mo- 
ment they touch the soil of the Homeland. 

A good hot drink is given by the authorities to 
all the patients before the train moves off, and 
of course on the journey itself they have excel- 
lent hot meals. 

Detention Hospital in the Docks. 

But sometimes it happens that a patient will 
have to be kept in the Docks for several hours 
and in order that these should be thoroughly well 
looked after, there exists a small Detention Hos- 
pital in the Docks, close to the berths of the Hos- 
pital ships. 

This little Hospital has the honourable distinc- 
tion of having been one of the very first to open 
its doors to the wounded, for it was ready, with 
six beds, in the very early days of August, 1914. 
It was staffed by the Southampton Detachment 
of the British Eed Cross Society, and from that 
day to this the Commandant and two members, 
together with a very capable R.A.M.C. sergeant 
and a few orderlies, have lived and worked there. 
The building is a wooden structure with several 
rooms in it and in peace time it was used for very 



38 BRITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

unwarlike purposes, but it has been admirably 
adapted and really makes a fine little Hospital. 

One steps from the Dock into the large ward 
where are the beds, nearly always full, and 
at one end there is a well-equipped ** dressing'' 
table and dispensary. The doctor or the sergeant 
dresses all wounds, and the V.A. members keep 
the place spotlessly clean, do all the clerical work 
and the cooking. They never know from one mo- 
ment to another how many patients they may 
have in for a meal, and have to be prepared for 
a rush at any time. Very often they have many 
more than six sent to them for a few hours' rest, 
and they put them on emergency beds or in com- 
fortable chairs round a fire. 

If any of the orderlies, working in the Docks, 
fall sick, they are sent here to be nursed, and as 
one of them said to me, ^^Oh, it's all right there. 
I had a jolly fine week when I had 'flu." 

**0h, yes, the noise is incessant and especially 
at night," said one of the members, smilingly, 
**for all the Army stores are moved by night, but 
we are used to it after having lived in it for two 
years!" 

A very big task which is undertaken by these 
ladies is the keeping of a Red Cross Depot, from 
which every Hospital ship and train replenishes 
its stores of ** comforts" whenever it puts in at 
Southampton. 

This entails an enormous amount of booking 



WOUNDED AT SOUTHAMPTON 39 

in and out, but probably one reason why gifts 
come in so freely is that every parcel is acknowl- 
edged by a hand-written note of thanks. The 
Store is beautifully kept in very orderly fashion 
and one of the Hospital Ship's Matrons told me 
that she was ** never refused anything she asked 
for." 

This is a fine little bit of V.A.D. work which is 
scarcely known to anyone save to the apprecia- 
tive Medical Military Dockyard authorities, who 
are constantly in and out of the Detention Hos- 
pital and know what good work it is doing. 

It is easier to pass through the eye of a needle 
than to get through the Dock Gates at Southamp- 
ton; not only does one have to shew one's pre- 
cious pass to get in, but also to get out again! 
But I was specially privileged, and I will en- 
deavour to take you with me now; in thought, if 
not in person. 

Having seen the Hospital we will go back to 
the berth and board the Hospital train. 

Hospital Train. 

Here would have been a wonderful subject for 
Frith 's brush — the war aspect of a railway sta- 
tion. Imagine a huge platform, dimly lit ; on the 
one side there lies the great white Hospital ship, 
and on the other there rests the Hospital train, 
both bearing conspicuous Eed Crosses which 
should protect them from all enemy attacks. 



40 BRITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

Between, there are dozens of swiftly moving 
stretcher parties, but there is no hurry, no bustle. 
The Surgeon-General and his staff keep sharp 
eyes on every detail, and an orderly did not seem 
in the least surprised when the General walked 
into the little shelter to inspect the making of the 
hot drinks that were being served. Nothing 
is too small, too insignificant for officers of high 
rank to attend to, in order that our wounded men 
shall have every possible comfort. The men, 
themselves, are cheery beyond measure because, 
at last, they are in ^* Blighty." The stretcher- 
bearers work very hard and for long hours, and 
it is good to hear that they are relieved on Sun- 
days by V.A.D. men who are at work in the town 
all the week. 

**It is awfully good of them to give up their 
Sunday," said a regular orderly to me, *'for I 
don't know what we should do without the rest. 
Of course when there is a rush on we cannot all 
get away, but anyhow these Sunday volunteers 
give all of us a few hours off in turn." 

In England Hospital trains have only two tiers 
of beds, whereas in France they have three. Al- 
together those over here are smaller, carrying 
only one Medical officer and two Sisters, instead 
of three Medical officers and three Sisters. So 
far, I believe no women V.A.D. nurses are em- 
ployed on Hospital trains in England, but a great 
number are now carried on Hospital ships. 




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WOUNDED AT SOUTHAMPTON 41 

The cruel loss of The Britannia showed the 
fine discipline of the entire staff, including a large 
number of men and women V.A.D. members. 

The Hospital trains in England have usually 
been adapted from ordinary rolling-stock, but 
they have special connecting corridors between 
each carriage so that there is no jar on starting 
or stopping. On the train there is an operating 
theatre, where emergency operations can be per- 
formed if necessary, and where all the dressings 
of *^ walking" cases are done. 

The cots in the train are extremely comfortable 
and well sprung. In many cases milk wagons have 
been utilised and serve excellently to accommo- 
date ten stretchers, which are put on trestles and 
are made up with mattresses. If movement is 
likely to injure a man his stretcher can be put 
straight on to one of these trestles. The wagons 
are painted white and look very bright and com- 
fortable, and as all carriages communicate with 
one another, the staff can get through to see all 
the patients throughout the journey. Hot meals 
are served to the men, all the food being cooked 
on the train in the cleverly contrived kitchen 
wagon, and of course all necessary dressings are 
done. 

Before we actually commence our Journey 
northwards I want to give you a glimpse of a Hos- 
pital, not far from Southampton, which is espe- 
cially unique. 



42 BEITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

Clearing Hospital in England, 

In order that men with comparatively small 
wounds (** walking cases'' as they are known) 
should not take up valuable space in Ambulance 
trains, a very large number of them are sent to 
the Clearing Hospital near to Southampton where 
they are kept for a few days and then sent in 
special carriages by ordinary trains to Hospitals 
near to their homes. 

Lt.-Colonel Twiss, E.A.M.C, has for many 
years been keenly interested in St. John Am- 
bulance work, so that when he was asked to 
organise this Hospital he got as his staff St. John 
Ambulance Brigade Orderlies. These men, to a 
certain extent, are members of V.A. Detachments, 
but they were all voluntary workers, so that if we 
take the spirit rather than the letter of the law, 
their work may well be recorded here, after they 
had become E.A.M.C. 

The Council schools were commandeered, but 
they would not accommodate the thousand-odd beds 
Colonel Twiss was to have under his care, so that 
Armstrong huts were set up in the adjoining 
Park, and with the use of various church halls 
the Hospital is very complete. The constant com- 
ing and going of large convoys makes the work 
exceptionally heavy. It is no uncommon thing 
for some hundreds of patients to be in and out 
again in three days. This means a big test of 



WOUNDED AT SOUTHAMPTON 43 

organisation and of the orderlies' work, but the 
officers have nothing but praise for their staff. 
As need for skilled orderlies abroad increases, a 
great many St. John men are taken from all the 
home hospitals, and Colonel Twiss has had to fill 
their places with recruits, but many of these are 
V.A.D. men and are doing admirable work. No 
Sisters are employed in this Hospital. 

Southampton Hospitals, 

In and around Southampton there are several 
excellently managed V.A.D. Hospitals, but as this 
same remark could be made about practically 
every part of the United Kingdom, I do not pro- 
pose to mention them in particular; but a bit of 
V.A.D. work which should not be missed is 
that which was done by St. John members in the 
very early weeks of August, 1914, and continued 
for over a year. 

It was discovered by an enthusiastic Ambulance 
worker that the thousands of troops who were 
being brought to Southampton and stationed on 
the Common in tents for one night before their 
departure to France were very badly wanting a 
Canteen where they could obtain a hot drink and 
some food, free. 

A large tent was obtained with considerable 
difficulty and equipped as a Canteen. This was 
kept open day and night by shifts of V.A.D. 
workers, men and women, and they rendered 



"44 BEITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

signal service to the weary troops who were about 
to set forth to the Front. The officers were al- 
most as badly in need of help as the men, and 
after a very few days a smaller tent was arranged 
as an Officers' Mess-room. 

This is only one of the sidelights, as it were, 
on V.A.D. work. It was not their legitimate work 
as it was not for wounded men, and in a sense 
it was done unofficially, and of course no St. John 
funds were used for it ; but there is no doubt that 
it filled in a gap at a moment when it was quite 
impossible for the Army to cope with all the 
smaller details of making arrangements for the 
comfort of the men. 



CHAPTBE VI 
V.A.D. WoBK IN AND Around Birmingham 

SO far I have had but little occasion to speak 
of women in V.A.D. work, for, naturally, it 
falls to the share of the men members to manage 
the transport of our wounded men. 

Since, as privileged travellers, we stepped upon 
the Ambulance train at Southampton Docks, we 
have been running swiftly and smoothly north- 
wards, and now, as the train draws into the great 
station at Snow Hill, Birmingham, we see a 
unique and very attractive sight. 

Birmingham Rest Station. 

The fame of the Birmingham Rest Station has 
spread far and wide. Even in France I heard it 
spoken of in tender accents, and though there are 
others in England, it is so particularly well man- 
aged, with such strict discipline, that I hope every- 
one will agree that I do well in describing it in 
order to show what Eest Station work means. 

The patients on all Ambulance trains are well 
fed, but an extra meal seldom comes amiss to 
Tommy, especially when unusual fare is served 
to them under somewhat unusual circumstances. 

Looking from the carriage window, the patients 

45 



46 BEITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

in the train see, on the platform, two files of nurs- 
ing members standing in front of big lorries upon 
which are set tea-urns, mugs, sandwiches, cakes 
and fruit. There is a shrill whistle and order- 
lies appear at once in each ward of the train, bear- 
ing trays filled with mugs of tea, whilst behind 
them come nurses with food and fruit. A little 
later, cigarettes, pipes, tobacco and postcards are 
brought round. 

^'It is extraordinary, the difference that is 
noticeable in the men after we have been to Bir- 
mingham," said an Army Sister to me. *^ There 
is quite a change in them, for the kindly thought 
and the bright words of greeting cheer them in- 
finitely, and make them realise what it means to 
be *home' again." 

Every train has been met since the first one 
came at very short notice in the early days of 
the war. The members of a Birmingham V.A.D. 
rushed down to the station and had food ready 
for that train, and without a lapse the work has 
gone on ever since. A room on the station has 
been given up, very courteously, by the railway 
authorities, and a huge amount of work is got 
through there by V.A. members under their 
Corps Commandant, Mrs. Porter. The cost falls 
entirely upon Birmingham, and so well do the 
townspeople appreciate this fine work that there 
is never any difficulty in gathering in funds for 
the Eest Station. 



V.A.D. WOEK IN BIRMINGHAM 47 

Directly the train is signalled the platform is 
cleared of all outsiders, and the doors of the im- 
provised kitchen are thrown open to allow of the 
exit of two files of nurses, spick-and-span in their 
grey cotton frocks, white aprons, and black bon- 
nets. One file turns to the right and the other to 
the left, and march to where stand the two trol- 
leys laden with food. Nothing is forgotten. 
There are even postcards and pencils so that the 
men can write messages to their friends, and the 
cards are collected and stamped by the nursing 
members. Slowly the train draws into the sta- 
tion, bearing on its sides the great red crosses 
which should claim exemption from molestation 
all over the world. 

The time for which each train is allowed to 
halt in the station flies by all too quickly, but the 
men have managed to make an astonishingly good 
meal, and at the word of command cups are col- 
lected and the members and orderlies again take 
their places by the now empty trolleys, and with 
many a last word the train steams away with 
its load of broken humanity; broken only in a 
physical sense for the men's spirits are higher 
than ever, their courage more indomitable, their 
eheeriness so inspiring that the ordinary sufferer 
is put to shame. 

It all sounds very simple, this feeding of 
wounded men on trains, but it needs fine organi- 
sation, a great deal of hard work, and a consider- 



48 BEITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

able amount of money. Some days the trains 
come in thick and fast, the biggest day being that 
on which 700 wounded men passed through Snow 
Hill station. But never yet has an Ambulance 
train come into Birmingham without these two 
lines of St. John V.A.D. members being there to 
greet the men. 

The Hospital train is going on to Manchester 
and the North, but we will step off at Birming- 
ham with the comfortable knowledge that a lit- 
tle later on we will board another of the trains 
and pay surprise visits to several of the great 
Northern cities. 

Birmingham is a great centre for V.A.D. work, 
and we will take it as typical of St. John work, 
whilst Manchester will be typical of British Red 
Cross work. As a matter of fact, in both the 
cities workers of the two societies are to be 
found, but it is curious that the majority of the 
one or the other generally predominates in every 
centre. After all, it is merely a ** distinction 
without a difference,'' and as a great Red Cross 
authority says humourously when he is interview- 
ing V.A.D. candidates, ** Do you want to wear a 
blue frock or a grey one ? " It is a fine thing that 
the differences of past years should have con- 
verged so that they have practically arrived at 
vanishing point, and can be summed up in the 
utterly unimportant question of the colour of the 
dress one wears! 



V.A.D. WOEK IN BIRMINGHAM 49 

V.A. workers have no time for petty quarrels. 
They are doing the nation's work; and they raise 
their heads, fixing their eyes upon an aim which 
is lofty enough to be Christlike, and must not be 
sullied by any sordid considerations. 

During that first week in August, 1914, a huge 
number of men who had qualified in First Aid 
and Nursing were called away from Birmingham 
to serve with H.M. Forces; but courses of lec- 
tures were set going then and have gone on ever 
since, so that recruits have been brought in to fill 
the places of those who have gone away. 

Nursing Detachments were already very strong 
in Birmingham, and a great many of the mem- 
bers having had experience in the Homoeopathic 
Hospital, they were quite qualified to act as pro- 
bationers under trained nurses in Auxiliary Hos- 
pitals. 

Several buildings had been promised for use 
as V.A.D. Hospitals **in case of invasion," but 
as there was no invasion the contracts all fell 
through, and new efforts had to be made for the 
obtaining of houses which could be turned into 
Hospitals. But before any one of these was ac- 
tually started, the nursing members were made 
use of for emergency services of all kinds. Bir- 
mingham, if not invaded by the enemy, was cer- 
tainly invaded by Belgian refugees, and a great 
deal of voluntary work for them was carried out 
by the V.A.D. members. 



50 BEITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

The first V.A.D. Hospital to be started in Bir- 
mingham was staffed by a St. John Detachment, 
the house being Hill Crest, Richmond Hill. 
Thirty beds were put in the house, and later on 
thirteen open-air shelters were put up to increase 
the number to fifty. Many wounded Belgians 
were received here in the autumn of 1914. The 
equipment and maintenance of this Hospital, as 
indeed of all the Hospitals in the Birmingham dis- 
trict, have been entirely given by friends in the 
neighbourhood. 

Later on, this Hospital was moved to Harborne 
Hall, a very beautiful house which is particularly 
well adapted to the purposes of a Hospital. An 
outstanding feature of this Hospital is that a 
laundry is provided in which the whole of the 
washing is done for the entire establishment. 
Many V.A.D. members work here daily, and by 
their labours effect a very large saving in ex- 
pense and much additional comfort to the 
patients. 

During the great July push the matron of this 
Hospital was rung up and asked if she could sud- 
denly accommodate twenty-five men who were 
coming on a Hospital train. Every bed in the 
house was full, but she was determined not to 
refuse to take in these men. She and her staff 
quickly arranged spare mattresses on the two 
large billiard tables and on various sofas in the 



V.A.D. WOEK IN BIEMINGHAM 51 

day-room, and on to these they put their con- 
valescent patients, so that within an incredibly 
short time they were ready to receive the wonnded 
men who had come direct from the Front. This 
was a piece of quick work which showed resource 
and adaptability, and is a typical case of what 
has been done over and over again in V.A.D. 
Hospitals. 

Following quickly on the heels of this first Hos- 
pital there were opened five others, all of them 
being excellently equipped and managed. Per- 
haps a special word may be given to the High- 
bury Hospital as it has a particular interest, 
since it was for many years the residence of the 
late Right Hon. Joseph Chamberlain, and was put 
at the disposal of the War Office by the Right 
Hon. Austen Chamberlain. The equipment of the 
house and the provision of funds for its mainte- 
nance were most generously undertaken by the 
employes of a huge munition factory in Bir- 
mingham. 

It is famous for its Neurological Department 
with its up-to-date electrical appliances and staff 
of fully qualified nurses. It has accommodation 
for one hundred and ninety beds, some thirty of 
these being in a very beautiful open-air pavilion 
which has been built in the grounds. Here 
again the laundry work has been carried out by 
V.A.D. members, the sum of £4 being saved 
weekly. 



52 BRITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

Handicrafts for Patients, 

In several of the Birmingliam Hospitals, as 
indeed in the Auxiliary Hospitals all over the 
country, a special effort has been made to teach 
the men handicrafts, not only with the view of 
giving them employment and amusement, but pos- 
sibly of helping them to earn money later on by 
their acquired skill. 

There was quite a rage in Highbury Hospitals 
for the making of plaster casts, the men copying 
the Army badges with great faithfulness. Then 
there were sketching classes, shorthand and type- 
writing classes, knitting, crocheting and wool- 
work classes, wool mat-making, cross-stitch belt 
making, and basket-making classes, and a good 
many of the men were tremendously interested in 
attending French classes. 

At Ashfield Hospital, Gt. Malvern, which comes 
under the Birmingham administration, they have 
made a feature of teaching carpentry to the con- 
valescent patients. They have set up an excellent 
bench in an outhouse in a loft, and a carpenter 
V.A.D. member has generously undertaken to 
give the men lessons. They are taught to make 
the most fascinating wooden toys in the fashion 
of those which used to come to us in thousands 
from Germany. It is to be hoped that many of 
the men who are incapable of returning to their 
own trades will find a means of livelihood in 



V.A.D. WOKK IN BIRMINaHAM 53 

carrying on the various handicrafts which they 
have begun to learn in our Auxiliary Hospitals. 
At Lordswood Hospital many of the men work 
in the kitchen garden as soon as they are con- 
valescent, and it is not only a healthy employ- 
ment, but gives them a valuable insight into out- 
door work. 

A New Departure in V.A.D. Work, 

It fell to the lot of the St. John V.A.D. mem- 
bers in Birmingham to be amongst the first, if 
not actually the very first, people to make a new 
departure in their nursing labours. For a long 
time the District Nursing Societies of many great 
cities have been in distress by reason of the 
shortage of trained nurses. A very large num- 
ber of district nurses are at work abroad or hold 
onerous positions in Military Hospitals at home. 
This has meant that the poor in all parts of the 
Kingdom have had to go ^^ short'' in the matter 
of district nursing. It is a thing of national im- 
portance that women and babies should be well 
looked after at this crisis, for we must think for- 
ward, and remember that the infants of to-day 
mean our fighting forces of the future. 

The Superintendent of the District Nursing 
Society in Birmingham decided to apply to the 
St. John authorities for help, with the result that 
some eighteen to twenty V.A.D. members regu- 
larly work as district nurses amongst the poor 



54 BRITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

of Birmingham. Each one goes on a month's 
probation and works with the trained Sister. 
Then if she shows proficiency she is allowed to 
go to cases by herself and to do a regular daily 
round; but she is never allowed to go to a new 
case, these always being undertaken by a trained 
Sister. The result has been most successful, and 
it has been arranged that the District Nursing 
Society should grant certificates for three and six 
months' good continuous work to V.A.D. mem- 
bers. 

May we quote the words of the Vice-President 
of the Nursing Society who said: **For forty-two 
years this Society has maintained the principle 
that only nurses with the highest professional 
training are qualified to undertake the district 
nursing among the poor. The exigencies of war 
have broken down the continuity of this princi- 
ple, and your Committee has gratefully accepted 
the assistance of the St. John Ambulance Bri- 
gade who have done sterling work in the absence 
of their professional sisters." 

It is quite likely that before these words are 
in print the example will have been copied in 
many great cities, thus giving the V.A.D. mem- 
bers a new chance of proving their usefulness in 
coming to the aid of the nation, and doing war 
work which is very humble and very lowly in 
itself, but is of the highest importance to the 
Empire. 



V.A.D. WORK IN BIRMINGHAM 55 

Quich Work. 

To be efficient, V.A.D. members must be quick 
and ready to grapple with any emergency that 
comes along. It is interesting to hear a few of 
the queer cases in which members have been 
called upon to give their help. 

For instance, there was a shortage of helpers 
at *'Our Day" collection in Birmingham, and on 
the day previous to the collection eighty girls 
were got together and told the street stations 
which they were to take up on the following 
day. 

Highbury Hospital was to have been opened on 
a certain Monday, but the July push came, and 
on the previous Saturday they were suddenly 
rung up and asked to take in forty men. This 
they did, although at the moment the telephone 
rang there were not forty beds in position, 
even ! 

With regard to the Hospital trains which come 
through Birmingham, the sudden calls are so 
frequent that they are not looked upon as peculiar 
but as being in the natural course of affairs. The 
V.A.D. member who acts as secretary for that 
particular work thinks nothing of going to bed 
with the telephone lying on the pillow so that 
there will be no chance of her not hearing the 
bell. 

During the rush of Belgian refugees the Matron 



56 BRITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

of the Dudley Road Infirmary, where they were 
being accommodated, suddenly rang up and asked 
if she could have eight V.A.D. members within 
one hour. They were supplied, and since then 
there have been various calls of this kind from 
the Matron, who knows that she can be certain, 
not only of getting the members, but that they 
will implicitly obey her orders and will work with- 
out question on any job to which she cares to put 
them. She has paid them the high tribute of say- 
ing that they are both obedient and reliable. 

Motor Transport V.A.D, 

For a very long while after the war broke out 
men and women who were motor drivers gave 
their services, and in some cases loaned their 
cars, for the purpose of conveying wounded men 
from the Hospital trains to the Hospitals. Later 
on it was thought well that there should be Motor 
Transport Voluntary Aid Detachments, and they 
are now at work in many centres all over the 
Kingdom. 

I had the great privilege of going out on a night 
convoy at Birmingham. The car I went on was 
driven by a girl, and it was quite wonderful to 
see how she made her way through the pitch-dark 
streets and took her place in the yard of the im- 
provised station where the Hospital trains came 
to a halt. 

The scene was a bizarre one, and took me back 




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as 

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V.A.D. WORK IN BIRMINGHAM 57 

to France, because the continuous rain had made 
the roads very muddy, (France and mud will al- 
ways be connected in my mind,) and the platform 
which had been put up at this siding was an 
extremely rough one. Dozens of ambulances 
and motor cars were ranged up in the yard, 
whilst on the platform there awaited several 
squads of V.A.D. men with stretchers and 
blankets ready for the transfer of the wounded 
men. 

The moment the Hospital train arrived the 
M.O. of the train jumped out and spoke to the 
Superintendent in charge of the V.A. stretcher- 
bearers. He was informed that there were a hun- 
dred and eighty cases on the train, a hundred of 
them being **cot cases," which meant that they 
must be removed by a stretcher. At a word of 
command the V.A.D. men sprang to attention and 
forthwith set to work. They carried their 
stretchers into the train, they moved the patients 
with the utmost gentleness, they carried them 
down the slope and put them into the ambulances, 
and at the end of fifty-three minutes the whole 
of those hundred and eighty cases had been sent 
off to Hospital. 

The motor cars make several journeys during 
each convoy, going to the various Hospitals to 
which the patients are designated. Everything 
works smoothly ; there is no sort of confusion, and 
I, as a privileged person on the front seat of one 



58 BEITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

of the ambulances (driven this time by a man 
V.A.D. member), could not help marvelling at 
the organisation which made things work so 
well. 

Practically every one of the V.A.D. men and 
women who run these motor convoys are at work 
in the day, the men for the most part being in 
business in the city. 

**But where does your sleep come in?" said I 
to one of them. ^*How much did you get to- 
night!" 

Personally I had had a few hours in bed as I 
had not been called out until 3 a.m., but the man 
I spoke to replied cheerily: 

^^Oh, I got the telephone message so late that 
it was not worth while going to bed, so I sat down 
in a comfortable chair over the fire, and my wife 
gave me and several other members of the con- 
voy a good meal at 2 a.m. Then we had to start 
for the station. I shall get back in time to have 
a bath and eight o'clock breakfast, and then I 
shall be off for business." 

*^But you cannot do that sort of thing often," 
I remonstrated. 

"Oh, yes," he answered; "three or four nights 
a week. It is wonderful how we have learned to 
do without sleep since the war began, and I really 
doubt if we are any the worse for it." 

There was nothing heroic about his tone, and 
he evidently felt that he was doing the most ordi- 



V.A.D. WOEK IN BIEMINaHAM 59 

nary work possible. This is quite a good exam- 
ple of what is being done quietly and without any 
ostentation by the members of the Voluntary Aid 
Movement throughout the Kingdom. 



CHAPTER VII 
V.A.D. Work in Manchester and District 

IT is not much of a run in a Hospital train from 
Birmingham to Manchester, and again we will 
step off at the great station and make a flying 
visit to the wonderful V.A.D. Hospitals which lie 
all round the city. 

Lancashire is always enthusiastic in whatever 
work it takes up, and has shown itself to be 
splendidly loyal not only in giving thousands of 
men as combatants to the Forces, but in giving 
itself unreservedly to V.A.D. work. 

Never shall I forget going to a Hospital in one 
of the manufacturing towns of Lancashire where 
the entire work was undertaken by mill girls. It 
was a small Hospital, and the skilled nursing 
could be done by the one trained Sister who was 
in charge. Under her she had a very large staff 
of girls and women who mostly had to earn their 
daily bread by working in factories from early 
morning until evening. 

These women live hard lives at all times, but 
they ungrudgingly give hours from their nights 
in order to get up at five in the morning and go 
to the Hospital to scrub and to clean until they 

60 



V.A.D. WOEK IN MANCHESTER 61 

are due at the factory. Again at the other end 
of the day, after they have done long hours at 
monotonous and often arduous work, they go into 
the Hospital on their way home and give another 
couple of hours to the serving of the evening 
meal, the making of beds, and the general tidy- 
ing up of the wards. The work during the day 
is divided amongst the women who have homes 
and children to tend and can only spare an hour 
or two away from them. 

All these women do not give of their surplus; 
they give something which costs them a great 
deal. They give it willingly, smilingly, and as 
though theirs is the privilege, which indeed it is. 
I wish I could take a few rich, leisured women, 
who still have not answered their country's call, 
and show them this beautiful little Hospital, ad- 
mirably run, clean and tidy as a new pin, which 
is entirely the outcome of the loving labour of 
women who have to work very hard indeed, in 
order to keep themselves in the bare necessities 
of life. 

East Lancashire, 

In East Lancashire alone there are sixty-one 
Hospitals under the British Red Cross Society 
or the Order of St. John, the total number of beds 
being 4,227. A very large majority of these 
Hospitals are worked by British Red Cross V.A.D. 
members ; the East Lancashire branch of the So- 



62 BEITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEEES 

ciety having been formed as long ago as 1910, with 
the primary object of organising and training the 
civilian population during times of peace so as 
to enable them to assist the Military authorities 
in time of war. 

There was a total membership of 3,000 men 
and 1,000 women registered at the War Office 
in V.A. Detachments, and on the outbreak of 
war all these Detachments were ready for work. 
Forty Comforts Sections were instituted with 
a leader in charge of each, who in turn organ- 
ised sewing parties in his or her particular 
district. 

The first Hospital up here to receive War 
Office sanction was Worsley Hall, but the first to 
open and actually receive patients was The Wood- 
lands, Wigan, (opened on October 6th,) which 
was placed at the disposal of the Branch by the 
Earl and Countess of Crawford, who generously 
provide all cost of the maintenance of the Hos- 
pital, which receives no Government grant. This 
Hospital with a hundred and thirty beds has been 
maintained by the Branch without any cost to the 
Government as the gift of the East Lancashire 
Branch of the British Red Cross Society to the 
nation. 

Here again fine transport work has been done. 
Owners of motor cars were approached and a 
splendid fleet of ambulances and cars was soon 
available. 



V.A.D. WOEK IN MANCHESTER 63 

An Amusing Story, 

A very funny story was told to me by a great 
Red Cross worker in Manchester. He said that 
people wondered why things did not always go 
like clockwork; and he thought that the answer 
given on the telephone at the commencement of 
the war by one of the Section Leaders to a car 
owner, who asked for two days ' notice to be given 
when the car was required, really put the case in 
a nutshell. The Section Leader, with a fine sense 
of humour, replied to this request, **If you will 
please arrange with the Kaiser to give us two 
days' notice of his soldiers' intention to attack 
ours, I shall be very pleased to give you the two 
days' notice you require." 

But it is the exception and not the rule to find 
people unreasonable once they have put their 
hand to V.A.D. work. There is something very 
infectious about it which makes men and women 
quickly realise that they must be prompt, that 
they must put their private feelings on one side, 
and above all that they must not be quarrelsome. 

Ambulance WorJc in Munition Factories, 

A certain number of V.A.D. members in Man- 
chester are regularly on duty at munition fac- 
tories. This is only typical of what is going on 
all over the country. 

I had the unusual privilege of going through 



64 BEITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

one of the great munition factories and seeing 
for myself exactly how the Ambulance Depart- 
ment was managed. They had set aside a small 
building for the work, and everybody in the fac- 
tory knew where it was, and that Ambulance men 
and women were on duty there night and day. 
Thus they get small cases to attend to through- 
out the twenty-four hours, because in practically 
all munition works the furnaces are never allowed 
to go out, and there are different shifts of work- 
ers, so that the making of munitions never ceases 
for one moment, day or night. 

In the Ambulance rooms there are beds and all 
the equipment necessary to deal with accidents. 
Of course they must always be prepared for a 
possible explosion, although happily these very 
rarely occur. Then there are men and women 
who are working regularly with explosives, whilst 
others are dealing with boiling vitriol and molten 
metal. All these are distinctly dangerous jobs, 
and when familiarity has bred contempt acci- 
dents may occur. 

V.A.D. members who are very well qualified 
and have had a lot of experience work in shifts in 
these Ambulance rooms. There is a stretcher 
party of men who are sent for in the case of 
accident, and who quickly convey the injured per- 
son to the accident room after First Aid has been 
rendered on the spot. A stretcher and necessary 
dressings are kept at hand in all the big ** shops,'' 



y.A.D. WOEK IN MANCHESTER 65 

and there are always people amongst the workers 
who are qualified in First Aid and can give assist- 
ance instantly an accident occurs. 

In one of the munition factories where two 
V.A.D. nurses are always in attendance, the night 
and day work being managed in three shifts, one 
thousand small accidents were attended to dur- 
ing the first seven weeks after the Ambulance 
room was opened. 

Joint Hospitals. 

Several of the Hospitals in the Manchester dis- 
trict are staffed by St. John and British Eed 
Cross Society members, and it is delightful to 
know that there is no friction between them. All 
sorts of novel ideas have been thought of for the 
raising of funds, because each of these Hospitals 
prides itself on the fact that it is self-supporting. 

Novel Entertainment. 

The Moss Bridge Eed Cross and St. John Hos- 
pital raised £89 to pay the remaining debt off the 
new wing by very novel methods. A garden- 
party was held in the grounds, the most attrac- 
tive feature of it being a trench ** somewhere in 
France," made and manned by wounded soldiers 
from the Hospital. On the right of the trench 
was a dugout, and hundreds of visitors traversed 
the anything but easy road which led to this 
realistic scene, There were two sections of 



66 BRITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

trenches, loop-holed and protected by barbed 
wire. Visitors were shown the working of a 
periscope from the trenches, and the gas- 
protector helmets were clearly explained by a 
corporal. 

Within a month another garden-party was held, 
and on this occasion, in addition to again giving 
a most vivid representation of trenches, there 
was an interesting innovation. This was a camp- 
life scene, and the soldiers sold tea made in dixies 
over regular camp fires. 

The two garden-parties realised the sum of 
£370, out of which an X-ray apparatus has been 
purchased for the Hospital. This speaks for the 
ingenuity of V.A.D. members. 

Ambulance Drill Halls as Hospitals. 

In many cases in Lancashire the excellent drill 
halls owned by St. John or British Red Cross 
Detachments have been converted into Hospitals. 
Perhaps one of the most typically successful is 
that at Rochdale. Very soon after the outbreak 
of war it was converted into a Hospital with 
thirty beds, and has a wonderful little operating 
theatre and all the necessary offices. 

In Lancashire there is the largest V.A.D. Hos- 
pital in the United Kingdom, and it is run by St. 
John Detachments. It is situated in the Grange, 
Southport, and has 500 beds. In December, 
1915, the Director-General of Medical Services 



V.A.D. WORK IN MANCHESTER 67 

visited the Hospital and said that it must 
become a Primary one instead of an Auxiliary. 
When it was found that its accommodation must 
be increased by having open-air huts set up, the 
work was effected in seven weeks, the ground 
which had been a kitchen garden being quickly 
converted into the site of a very up-to-date Hos- 
pital. 

Here we see another branch of V.A.D. work, 
which again is typical of what is going on in 
every district. V.A.D. Pharmacists in this Hos- 
pital have control of an enormous store of 
dressings and drugs. Three quarters of a 
ton of cotton wool, and 10,000 yards of gauze, 
bought in the cheapest competitive market, is an 
incident in their work. The dispensaries are 
busy at midnight instead of in the day, for the 
chemists come after their businesses are closed, 
and toil into the night at the Hospitals, prepar- 
ing the lotions for the next day's work in the 
wards, making mixtures, and attending the many 
orders which have come in from nurses and doc- 
tors during the day. 

The kitchen V.A.D. members here have no 
sinecure. For instance, the peeling and slicing 
of 186 pounds of potatoes, the cleaning of 200 
knives, forks and spoons, the scouring of sinks 
and boilers, is a magnificent piece of volun- 
tary work of which Southport may be justly 
proud. 



68 BRITAIN ^S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

Blanket Bay, 

This was a bright idea, a reception being held 
in Hesketh Park, admission being by blanket, 
which raised 1,000 of these necessary articles. 

V.A.B. Sewing Room. 

The Lady Quartermasters have organised this 
department, an enormous amount of repairing 
and stitching having been done there; 4,479 
yards of material have been cut out in the Hos- 
pital itself and made up by voluntary workers. 

Convoys, 

It is not anything unusual for the Hospital to 
get word of the arrival of a hundred or more 
patients straight from the train within a few 
hours, and they are taken into the Hospital with- 
out any delay. 

Fire, 

A guard of the Southport Voluntary Training 
Corps is on duty at night in case of fire. 

Another Instance of Quick Work. 

The Commandant of the Southport Hospital 
had one short day's notice that he must provide 
accommodation for seventy-five men. At that 
moment he had only twenty-five beds empty. 
They took a house opposite and equipped it, and 
the same evening received the extra patients. 

We cannot pass over the V.A.D. work in East 



V.A.D. WORK IN MANCHESTEE 69 

Lancasliire without touching on some of the beau- 
tiful houses which have been converted into Hos- 
pitals. Two of the Hospitals, Worsley Hall and 
The Woodlands, Wigan, receive no Government 
grant. 

I purposely do not mention any names as it 
would be invidious to do so, for it is quite impos- 
sible to say that any one man or woman has 
worked better than any other, or that any of the 
great people who have lent their mansions and 
have given most generous support have been 
more kindly than the humbler folk who have lent 
their houses and have given every penny they 
could spare to the work of succouring the 
wounded. 

The whole object of this book would be defeated 
if it were thought to be written about any par- 
ticular Hospital or department of V.A.D. work. 
As I have said before, I am trying to give a wide 
outlook of the work as a whole, and only pick 
out instances here and there to make my point 
more emphatic, and to show what is being done 
by the thousands of men and women who have 
thrown themselves into the V.A.D. movement. 

A Typical V.A.D. Hospital. 

Call to mind a quiet country town, with its old- 
world buildings and its quaint little High Street 
nestling beneath the shadow of the wonderful 
Cumberland hills. 



70 BEITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEEES 

I liad motored up from Lancashire through the 
noisy, dirty, bustling manufacturing towns, where 
the streets are crowded with women wearing 
shawls over their heads, and with children who 
made a great clatter in their iron-ringed clogs; 
the car slid through these populous towns out 
into the wide country beyond, and gradually we 
approached the mist-clad hills which shelter the 
beautiful lakes of Cumberland. 

The Friends' Meeting House had generously 
been loaned for the duration of the war to a 
V.A. Detachment, and it had been made into an 
excellent Hospital. Turning sharply out of the 
High Street under a covered archway, the car 
suddenly came to a standstill, and we found our- 
selves being greeted by the Commandant, who 
forthwith took us all over the little Hospital. 
Every bed was filled with a wounded man, but 
cheeriness prevailed in all the wards, and the men 
were not loath to say how glad they were to be 
there. 

It struck me then that the e:ffect of such a Hos- 
pital as this was a deeper one than that which 
appeared on the surface. It had been set up in 
order to heal broken men, but in the carrying out 
of this merciful work people of every grade had 
been brought together and had worked in sym- 
pathy one with another. 

The well-born woman, who perhaps had never 
set her hand to rough toil before, met her lowlier 




Disinfectors mounted on a steam lorry. Sent to France by the 
Order of St. John for use of a British Eegiment. 




A view of the interior. The lorry supplies steam for the 

disinfectors. 



V.A.D. WOEK IN MANGHESTEE 71 

sister on level ground; the trades-people of the 
little town were proud to send in gifts; the 
farmers in outlying farms gave eggs and butter; 
workmen of many trades had given their valuable 
time in order to make the Hospital as perfect as 
possible. 

Imagine the moral if not ethical e:ffects upon 
these people of every class, drawn together by one 
common cause, one national sorrow. Surely the 
result of the establishment of hundreds of V.A.D. 
Hospitals throughout our land must have some 
lasting influence on the people of Great Britain. 

It is an aspect of V.A.D. work which should not 
be overlooked; and whilst one does not want to 
be unpractical, nor can one have any delusions 
that small disagreements have not constantly oc- 
curred in all kinds of nursing institutions, the 
work in the main has been carried on with a 
generosity of spirit and a **following after the 
gleam," as Tennyson would have put it, which 
cannot fail to have its good effect on the better 
national understanding of class for class. 

V.A.D. Victim of German Treachery. 

One of the very earliest of the many V.A.D. 
members who have given their lives for their 
country was a woman of humble circumstances 
who was working in a Lancashire V.A.D. Hos- 
pital. I was being shown through the Hospi- 
tal by the Commandant a few days after she 



72 BRITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

had met her tragic death, and he told me all 
about it. 

She had worked in the Hospital so arduously 
that her health broke down and the doctor said 
that she must have a rest. She was not in a 
position to take a holiday, but having the chance 
of going as stewardess on a boat, seized the 
opportunity gladly. It was a comparatively small 
boat, and she was one of very few women on her. 
A German submarine chased them, ordered them 
to stop, and gave the Captain five minutes to 
put all his people into small boats. Our V.A.D. 
member was climbing down the side into the boat 
just about three minutes after the order had been 
given, when one of the Germans, it is alleged, 
deliberately shot her and she fell dead into 
the sea. 

Since that day, alas, the list of V.A.D. men and 
women who have fallen has become an appallingly 
long one. If it were possible I should like to give 
the name and the story of each one individually 
here, but that is out of the question. Whilst I 
shall touch on the details of some of those mem- 
bers who have given their lives in the cause, I 
hope it will be understood that they are typical 
cases only, and that I am perfectly well aware 
that whilst I speak of the few members of whom 
I know personally, there are dozens of others 
quite as magnificent who must perforce remain 
unmentioned, 



V.A.D. WOEK IN MANCHESTER 73 

There have been many instances of girls going 
out to Hospitals in foreign lands and dying of 
disease. There was one young girl, a V.A.D. 
member, who had been in Egypt only one week 
when she contracted typhoid fever and died. 
There have been nurses in France who have be- 
come fatally ill; there have been the men and 
women on Hospital ships which have been tor- 
pedoed; and there is a huge number of members 
who have either seriously injured themselves in 
the course of their work, or have contracted such 
illnesses that they will never be absolutely fit 
again. 

It is all taken as part and parcel of the work. 
There is no thought of grumbling; in fact it is 
almost the other way about ; for the V.A.D. mem- 
ber recognises that it is a tremendous privilege 
to be allowed to share in some slight measure the 
dangers and the risks which our fighting men 
take as an everyday matter. 



CHAPTER VIII 

The Bombaedment of a V.A.D. Hospitax. 

HAPPILY it has only once occurred, so far, 
that a Hospital in England has been under 
German fire; but it is interesting to remember 
the stirring story of that event and to know that 
it was a V.A.D. Auxiliary Hospital which under- 
went this trying experience. 

Nobody will ever forget the effect made on the 
minds of everyone in Great Britain when the news 
came out that three of our undefended East Coast 
towns had been bombarded by German ships, 
Scarborough, Whitby and West Hartlepool were 
the first English towns to know what it meant to 
have German shrapnel and high explosive shells 
falling in their midst. 

It happened early in the morning of December 
16th, 1914, and the story was simply but poign- 
antly told to me by the Commandant of the St. 
John Hospital which actually had a piece of shell 
hurled through it. 

The Hospital had been established in the 
Masonic hall in West Hartlepool, the hall being 
situated quite a mile and a half inland. The main 
hall had been turned into the chief ward, and at 

74 



BOMBAEDMENT OF HOSPITAL 75 

the time of the bombardment there were only 
patients in this ward, the beds upstairs being 
empty. The Hospital was in charge of a doctor 
who was also an old St. John Ambulance Brigade 
worker, and his wife, who was a fully trained 
nurse, and acted as Commandant. They slept 
away from the Hospital, leaving a fully trained 
Sister in charge at night. 

The bombardment began a few minutes before 
eight o'clock in the morning, and as it happened, 
the Sister in charge had just run across the road 
to her bed-room to get something she required, 
having left a senior V.A.D. member in charge. 

The first whizz of a shell coming over the Hos- 
pital startled the V.A.D. nurse, but she made no 
comment and quietly went and looked out of the 
front door and saw for herself what was happen- 
ing. The noise of the shells was tremendous, for 
the Germans seemed to have poured them into the 
town at a quick rate. The St. John member went 
back to the ward and ordered all the men, who 
were luckily more or less convalescent, to get up. 
There was one empty bed in the ward. Before 
the men had time to get out of bed a portion of 
shrapnel came hurtling through one of the win-^ 
dows and fell in the middle of that one empty bed ! 

Still there was no panic. The men scrambled 
into their clothes and were collected into the hall 
of the building, as that was the centre, and the 
V.A.D. member judged it to be the safest place* 



76 BRITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

She guessed that the gas would be turned off and 
she knew that they would be requiring large 
quantities of boiling water before long, so she 
quietly set the orderlies to making big fires in 
every room, and putting kettles on to boil. Of 
course by this time the Sister in charge had run 
back and did valuable service in preparing for the 
stream of wounded which began to arrive at the 
doors. 

Meanwhile, the doctor and his wife had shown 
themselves to be truly heroic and splendidly patri- 
otic by setting forth immediately to go to the 
Hospital. They left their little children in the 
house in the charge of an aunt, and went through 
the shell-strewn streets, taking their lives in their 
hands. 

*^It must have been hard for you to leave the 
children," I said to the mother. 

**Yes, it was, because one never knew whether 
a shell would not strike the house at any moment ; 
but of course it was our simple duty to come to 
the Hospital. No one could have done anything 
else." 

It is just these ''simple duties" which mean 
everything to a country at war. It never occurred 
to either the doctor or his wife that they were 
doing anything brave or splendid. They were in 
charge of the Hospital, and directly it was men- 
aced their place was in it, no matter what their 
private feelings might be. 



BOMBARDMENT OF HOSPITAL 77 

All that morning wounded men, women, and 
children were being brought into the Hospital, 
some of them dying, and many of them maimed 
for life. One woman, whose finger I saw being 
dressed whilst I was there, told me that she had 
been sitting in her kitchen with her baby on her 
lap when a shell tore through the roof and buried 
itself away in the ground beneath her. As it 
passed, a piece of shrapnel took her little finger 
off, but the baby was untouched. 

The wreckage caused by the bombardment in 
West Hartlepool was indescribable, and the sto- 
ries of ruined homes and maimed little children 
are too horrible for repetition. The authorities of 
the town let the gas off directly the bombard- 
ment began, and it was a mercy that they had 
done so, since a bomb fell quite close to the gas 
works. 

The Germans would have other nations believe 
that these three towns were fortified, just as they 
try to justify themselves when they sink unarmed 
and neutral ships, and when they perpetrate all 
sorts of atrocities on women and children in the 
countries which they have overrun; but there 
will come a day of reckoning when the whole 
world will know the truth, and will know that 
these three coast towns were no more defended 
than are our Hospital ships used for combative 
purposes. 



78 BEITAIN'S CIVILIAN YOLUNTEERS 

'A Look Bound the North, 

Now that we have come up so far North, (and 
my readers have had a far better journey than 
I had, for I happened to travel at a moment when 
the whole of the railway traffic was upset,) we 
may as well have a look round at the wonderful 
work which Voluntary Aid Detachments have 
accomplished in Northumberland and Durham. 

Here, as in all the other districts of England, 
a County Director has been appointed, who acts 
equally for the British Red Cross and the St. 
John Ambulance. This arrangement has worked 
admirably, and it is remarkable how unbiassed 
these County Directors have shown themselves to 
be, although in every case they had originally be- 
longed to one or other of the organisations. 

A very large number of V.A.D. men had gone 
from this part of the world into the various medi- 
cal branches of the Army and Navy; but at the 
end of December, 1915, there were still a great 
many male V.A.D. members who were miners, 
munition workers, or engaged in other ** starred" 
employments. 

The very first work that fell to the share of 
the Voluntary Aid Detachments in Newcastle was 
to establish a Rest Station at the Central Rail- 
way Station, to attend to soldiers passing through 
Newcastle, or to those in the town who became ill. 
Gradually Hospitals were established throughout 



BOMBARDMENT OF HOSPITAL 79 

the district, some of them being especially de- 
tailed for the work of attending to the sick 
amongst the troops stationed in the neighbour- 
hood. Other Hospitals relieved the congestion at 
the great Military Hospital, and there is one 
Detention Hospital which is largely staffed by 
members of a female V.A.D., and although not 
classed as a V.A.D. Hospital, has been carried on 
by this Detachment ever since in conjunction with 
successive Field Ambulance Units. 

At the Rest Station, Newcastle, 

Members of the Nursing Divisions of the St. 
John Ambulance Brigade provided this Eest Sta- 
tion in one of the waiting rooms, a continuous 
service of members being on duty night and day. 
These members also meet Hospital trains pass- 
ing through Newcastle and serve tea, coffee, 
cigarettes and sandwiches to the men. 

There are sixteen V.A.D. Hospitals in Nor- 
thumberland alone, and many of these are in his- 
toric houses which have been loaned by their 
owners for this purpose. Haggerston Castle, 
Beal, is a very fine place for a Hospital, whilst 
another very beautiful house, Holeyn Hall, Wy- 
lam-on-Tyne, accommodates fifty beds. 

It is invidious to say anything about special 
Hospitals when. the general standard is such a 
high one. As a matter of fact, the very first Hos- 
pital to be opened in this district was the one at 



80 BRITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEEES 

West Hartlepool, and the Military Commandant 
of the town told me personally that he did not 
know what they would have done without it in 
those first early months of the war when no 
military medical arrangements had been made. 
Shortly afterwards Whinney House was estab- 
lished at Gateshead, and is the largest Voluntary 
Aid Hospital of the North, and one of the largest 
in the whole of England. 

Transport, 

The entire work of the transport of patients 
from Hospital trains to Hospital has been carried 
out by members of the St. John Ambulance 
Brigade, the whole work being put under a Dis- 
trict Transport Officer. 

Hospitals in Durham, 

In the county of Durham nine Hospitals were 
opened up to the end of 1914, three of these being 
for local troops. In a year's time the Hospitals 
had increased to twenty-four, and since then a 
good many others have been added. 

One of the most historic of these Hospitals is 
that which has been established in Brancepeth 
Castle. It has 106 beds in it. The great rooms, 
still decorated with fine old armour, make magnifi- 
cent wards. 

Windlestone Hall, Ferryhill, is another of the 
very fine Durham Hospitals. 



BOMBAEDMENT OF HOSPITAL 81 

During the several air raids which the northern 
towns have suffered, much good work has been 
rendered by V.A.D. members. One Detachment 
has been specially assigned to this duty in con- 
nection with the Coast Defence Scheme. They 
are always on the alert, and ready to cope with 
any emergency that may arise. 

Depot for Duty-Free Goods for Hospitals. 

By consent of the Custom House authorities 
in London, the County Director was allowed to 
open a depot for duty-free goods for all the Mili- 
tary Hospitals in the North of England. A great 
deal of admirable work has been done at this 
depot, huge gifts of tea, tobacco and cigarettes 
having passed out of bond through the depot to 
the Hospitals. 

A Commandant versus a Trained Sister. 

In the report of the work of the British Red 
Cross Society and the St. John Ambulance Bri- 
gade in the northern part of England there is a 
note about the difficulty which has been experi- 
enced in some places of assigning the exact duties 
of the Commandant and the trained Sister. It is 
so wisely put that I think I cannot do better than 
quote it, and as the report says, if this division of 
work were entirely understood, no difficulty 
would arise in connection with the respective du- 
ties of the Commandant and the trained Sister, 



82 BEITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEEES 

The Commandant **is responsible to the County 
Director for the administration, discipline and 
maintenance of the Hospital, and for the provi- 
sion of the necessary V.A.D. sta:ff. The trained 
nurse acting in the capacity of Lady Superintend- 
ent, Matron, or Sister-in-charge, is responsible 
for the wards and the nursing duties connected 
with the Hospital, and to arrange all the work of 
the Probationers who are under her. She ia 
responsible to the Medical Officer of the Hospital 
for her patients/' 

The Stafflng of a Military Hospital. 

It is interesting to note that the first notable 
example of the complete staffing of a Military 
Hospital occurred at the Northumberland War 
Hospital, Gosf orth, when a contingent from No. 6 
district, consisting of one sergeant-major, ten 
sergeants, eleven corporals, and a hundred and 
twenty-nine privates, was sent to staff this 
Hospital. 

Losses hy Death, 

This district has suffered terribly by losing 
members through death. Their men have been 
killed in the Dardanelles, in France and in Alex- 
andria ; whilst others have died in Hospital in the 
East and in Malta. They have lost a good many 
members of the women's V.A.D. also by death. 



BOMBAEDMENT OF HOSPITAL 83 

War Honours, 

But on the other hand the district has been 
cheered by several of its members having received 
special war honours. One man has won the Cross 
of the Eussian Order of St. George ; another the 
French Croix de Guerre for services in the 
Vosges with a motor ambulance ; a Nursing Sister 
has had presented to her the Gold Medal of the 
Montenegrin Eed Cross by the Queen of Mon- 
tenegro, and the Gold Medal of the Order of 
Danilo by the King of Montenegro; whilst two 
men have earned the D.C.M. and the D.S.M. re- 
spectively. 

Probably by the time these words are in print 
these honours will have been added to ; but it is 
good to know that the men and women members 
of the y.A.D.'s from all over the kingdom — nay, 
from all over the Empire — are earning not only 
war medals which they can wear upon their 
breasts, but something that is higher and deeper 
and greater — the love and the respect of those 
amongst whom they labour. 



CHAPTEE IX 
V.A.D. WoEK IN THE South 

FOR travellers such as ourselves, who do not 
have to wait for trains, and certainly can 
surpass aeroplanes in the matter of rapidity, it 
is nothing for us to fly from the North to the 
South in order to get a peep at V.A.D. work 
there. 

For a moment we will pass over the * kittle vil- 
lage of London," as our Canadian cousins are 
fond of calling it, and fly on to the beautiful land 
of Devon, which we will take as a typical example 
of what is going on all along the southern coast 
of England. 

It was in the year 1909, when the Voluntary 
Aid movement was in its infancy, that the people 
of Devon took it up enthusiastically, and raised 
many Detachments in the towns round about. 
There were many difficulties and differences, and 
much ignorance and even hostility had to be over- 
come, we are told, before the V.A. organisation 
acquired vitality and prominence ; but the County 
grappled with these difficulties, and worked out 
a scheme of V.A. organisation on its own lines, 

84 



V.A.D. WOEK IN THE SOUTH 85 

the guiding principle being the necessity for form- 
ing the Detachments into a definitely organised 
force. County headquarters were established, 
and from there absolute control was kept over all 
the units. 

The Commandants of the various Detachments 
were not satisfied with the bare bones, as it were, 
of First Aid and Home Nursing being learned by 
their members. They insisted that they should 
get real Hospital training, and advanced courses 
of instruction were given, with frequent field 
days and competitions, the diligent preparation 
and equipment of buildings for use as Hospitals, 
and the seizing of all possible opportunities for 
taking practical training in Hospitals. There is 
no doubt that this early training has left a very 
definite mark upon the war work which has been 
accomplished by these V.A. Detachments. This 
is a very important point to be remembered by all 
who are interested in the history of the Voluntary 
Aid movement. 

It must be confessed that the standard of the 
Detachments all over the Kingdom was not an 
equal one. People were too apt to think that war 
was a chimera which would never materialize, and 
that members belonging to V.A. Detachments 
were simply amusing themselves by playing at 
something which never would be brought into 
practical use. 

It is true that the War Office very wisely in- 



86 BEITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

sisted on holding an annual inspection of every 
registered Detachment, and for the moment this 
brought the members up to a state of efficiency; 
but the truth remains that real, keen enthusiasm 
for the work seems to have run in ^^ veins,'' as it 
were, throughout the country, and there is no 
doubt but that the county of Devon may be prop- 
erly proud of having been one of the richest 
** veins" which existed in England before the war 
broke out. 

The preparations before the war were so well 
thought out that few changes of any kind had to 
be made. Some months before the outbreak of 
war a test mobilization was held on a large scale 
in order to see exactly what would happen in the 
unlikely event of England being invaded. The 
plans which were utilised that day have required 
little or no modification for the war work which 
has been carried on, though happily it has not 
been in the nature of dealing with the invasion 
of our island. Enough women had qualified as 
V.A.D. nurses before the war to staff the present 
twenty-one Hospitals which exist in Devon (at 
the time of writing) exclusive of the work in 
Plymouth. 

Two Objects. 

They realised in Devon a point which was over- 
looked by a good many Voluntary Aid Detach- 
ments. They knew that the object of V.A.D. work 




St. John litter, which will take either the St. John or the 

army stretchers. 




Undercarriage packed for transport. 



V.A.D. WORK IN THE SOUTH 87 

was twofold: first the tending of wounded and 
sick men from the Front, and secondly, the tend- 
ing of garrison troops in the neighbourhood. 

Men Direct from Hospital Ships, 

The report from Devon tells us that the Hos- 
pitals of Exeter, Newton Abbot and Torquay take 
cases direct from the Hospital ships at South- 
ampton, and are in this respect almost unique 
among the V.A.D. Hospitals in England. 

Catering for Hospitals, 

They work the catering for Hospitals in this 
district on a general system with admirable 
results. An office has been set apart for the spe- 
cial work of catering for all the extra Hospitals 
and for providing food for the Rest Stations. It 
has answered admirably both from the economi- 
cal point of view and from having good food sup- 
plied to each Hospital without any trouble to the 
individual Commandants. 

Quick Work, 

Devon has not been behind in supplying some 
instance of exceptionally quick work. 

At one of the Hospitals a telegram was received 
at nine o'clock on a Sunday morning that forty- 
five patients would be sent from Southampton in 
the course of the day. No patients had been 
previously received, nor had the staff been sum- 



88 BRITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

moned. By 4.30 p.m., forty-nine patients had been 
put to bed and treatment begun ! 

Another Hospital was mobilised at forty-eight 
hours' notice to deal with a prevailing epidemic 
of influenza. 

A building which had been used as a store, and 
was quite unsuitable as a Hospital as it was then, 
was converted in forty-eight hours. 

West of England Eye Infirmary, 

Notice of mobilisation of this Hospital was re- 
ceived at mid-day on Sunday, October 4th, 1914. 
The Hospital was equipped and ready for receiv- 
ing patients by mid-day on Monday, October 5th. 

At Exeter on a Sunday in October, 1914, a tele- 
phone message was received, saying that the Hos- 
pital must be opened immediately for the recep- 
tion of sick from the local garrison. On the 
following Monday a Hospital with sixty beds, 
fully equipped, was ready, and patients were re- 
ceived during the day. This building had been 
previously earmarked and all the necessary 
equipment was ready, but at the actual time of 
the telephone message arriving it was still a 
Children's Home under the Local Government 
Board. The local officers were extremely prompt 
in their removal of the children, and in less than 
twelve hours the building was handed over to the 
y.A.D. staff. 

In the following February there was a severe 



V.A.D. WORK IN THE SOUTH 89 

outbreak of bronchial pneumonia in some bar- 
racks, and a very serious state of affairs was cre- 
ated because of the lack of Hospital accommoda- 
tion. A building in the Barrack Square, which 
had been originally a Quartermaster's store and 
had not been used at all for about twenty-five 
years, was offered to the V.A. organisation for 
the purpose of a Hospital. In less than forty- 
eight hours it was fully equipped and staffed, and 
patients were being admitted. This was a case 
when no sort of previous warning had been given 
that such a thing could possibly be requested. 
The building was exceedingly dirty, and it had 
to be cleaned by the V.A. staff before any sort 
of equipment could be put into it. 

To add to the worries of the V.A. authorities, 
it was during the work of getting this Hospital 
ready that a convoy of a hundred cases had ar- 
rived direct from overseas, and had to be trans- 
ported to Hospitals in Exeter. Troubles never 
come alone, and it was really enough to cause 
some sort of excitement when they heard, in addi- 
tion, that some cases of measles had developed in 
one of the Hospitals and must be isolated. The 
Administrator says with charming modesty, **I 
think perhaps, therefore, that these particular two 
days were as full of incident for V.A. workers 
in Exeter as any we have ever had." 

Here again, the joining of the two great Socie- 
ties has worked smoothly and well. The Head- 



90 BEITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

quarters is staffed by V.A. members trained from 
both Societies. It seems that this staff carries 
out a work which is usually done by the Central 
Military Hospital of a district and not by the Vol- 
untary Aid organisation at all, and it is charming 
indeed to hear from one of the chief authorities in 
Devon that ** there never was at any time friction 
between the two organisations.'' 

Transport, 

At Torquay the whole of the transport for the 
Red Cross Hospitals is done by St. John men, 
whilst in Exeter the transport is done by British 
Red Cross and St. John men combined. Several 
St. John members are serving in British Red 
Cross Hospitals. The Administrator of the 
Headquarters Staff, a military office appointed by 
the Military authorities, is rightly proud of being 
able to say, * * so that you see we are quite impar- 
tial, as personally I think all Voluntary Aid or- 
ganisations should be." 

Two Hours' Notice. 

The St. John Hospital at Newton Abbot re- 
ceived a sudden message that forty cases were 
coming direct to them from overseas, and would 
be with them in two hours' time. The Hospital 
was not open to patients, but the staff turned to, 
and within two hours forty beds were ready for 
the men. 



V.A.D. WOEK IN THE SOUTH 91 

This is the kind of thing that has been happen- 
ing in V.A.D. Hospitals in every part of the coun- 
try, and in every case the V.A.D. staff has risen 
to the occasion and accomplished what apparent- 
ly looked like the impossible. 



CHAPTER X 

Some of the Woek in London 

TO attempt to give any sort of adequate de- 
scription of the V.A.D. work that has gone on 
in London ever since the war began would be 
ridiculous, for it would need a volume to itself. 
Therefore I must beg for leniency, and hope that 
my readers will take each incident which I men- 
tion and multiply it by a hundred at least, and 
then they may arrive at some sort of correct 
result. 

On that terrible August Bank Holiday before 
war was actually declared, many members of the 
St. John Ambulance Brigade were out on duty on 
the open spaces around London, and some of them 
occupied their spare time between attending to 
accidents by writing postcards to men belonging 
to Detachments telling them where the Military 
and Naval authorities wished them to report them- 
selves on the following day. 

It was wonderful how promptly the men turned 
out, leaving their work and their homes in order 
to go to the help of their country. The women 
members were not behindhand. Dozens of them 
were employed during that first week of the war 

92 



SOME OF THE WORK IN LONDON 93 

in making tourniquets for the equipment of Mili- 
tary or Naval Medical Units. 

The historic St. John's Gate, Clerkenwell, 
breathing history from its beautiful old rooms, 
became a beehive of earnest workers, which was 
only equalled for activity by the Headquarters 
of the British Red Cross Society. 

Belgian Refugees. 

One of the first London Detachments to get to 
work was one belonging to the British Red Cross 
Society. It had offered to it a very large ware- 
house close to Victoria Station. It was a huge 
job to clean it down, but the members of the De- 
tachment made short work of it, and in an in- 
credible space of time the many floors of the great 
building w:ere turned into dormitories filled with 
beds. 

Hundreds of hungry, weary, half-clothed Bel- 
gian refugees were taken into this house day by 
day and given food and rest. 

It was a good piece of work that was done on 
the spur of an emergency, but very soon the De- 
tachment turned its mind and its capacity to work 
more in the nature of that for which it had been 
formed. People not skilled in nursing could deal 
with the '* Belgian" problem, and they came 
forward nobly, gradually releasing members of 
Detachments who could be of real use in Hospital 
work. 



94 BEITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

Hospital for Officers, 

One of the first V.A.D. Hospitals for officers 
was opened in the beautiful house in Cadogan 
Gardens, which was most kindly lent by Viscount- 
ess Mountgarret. A St. John Detachment ran 
the Hospital, with a certain number of fully 
trained Sisters to take charge of the nursing. 

Since then so many of the most beautiful 
houses in London have been given up as Hos- 
pitals that it is impossible to mention them by 
name. Such historic houses as Londonderry 
House, Dorchester House, and quite recently 
Grosvenor House, have been given over for the 
use of our wounded men ; and wherever they are 
you may be certain that you will meet members 
of a V.A. Detachment. 

An Army Matron of an Officers' Hospital not 
a stone's throw from Park Lane told me that she 
had been amazed at the capability shown by her 
V.A.D. nurses. She said, **I am a strict disci- 
plinarian, and I believe in pouncing on them if 
they do not do their work well, but I must say 
they are extraordinarily good, as a rule. Some 
of the senior ones, who had had a certain amount 
of training before the war and have since worked 
regularly in Hospital, are quite equal to any 
regular Hospital staff nurse. I watch each one 
closely before I allow her to have any responsi- 
bility; but I have found many of them capable, 



SOME OF THE WOEK IN LONDON 95 

extraordinarily conscientious, and all-round good 
workers." 

The White City as a Hospital, 

Who amongst those of us who remember the 
White City as nothing but a place of entertain- 
ment and amusement could ever have imagined 
that a portion of it would become a Hospital? 
In turn the great buildings of the erstwhile exhi- 
bition have served for many purposes since the 
war began; but one of the earliest was the shel- 
tering of sick recruits. 

Many civilians seem to overlook the fact that 
in creating a huge Army as we have done during 
this war, the Military authorities have not only 
to think of the wounded and sick from the Front, 
but must establish Hospitals for the reception of 
men who become ill whilst on home duty. 

It was for the recruits billeted in the White 
City that the Hospital there was needed, and for 
many months it did magnificent work. It fell to 
the happy lot of a British Red Cross Detach- 
ment to start the work. Let the Commandant of 
the Detachment tell the story of that work : 

On October 18th, 1914, we were told that in three 
days ' time we should be required to open a sixteen 
bed Hospital in the Eoyal Pavilion, as some thou- 
sands of troops were to be accommodated in the 
^White City at once. 



96 BRITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEEES 

We spent from that date to the morning of the 
21st in collecting from the inhabitants of the 
neighbourhood who had already promised us help, 
should the necessity arise, the equipment for the 
Hospital. Everything was plainly marked and 
entered in books by our Quartermaster as either 
a gift or a loan, and what was lacking was sup- 
plemented out of the funds of the Society. 

At two o'clock on the 21st, we were given pos- 
session of the Pavilion in a quite incomplete form. 
Work was still going on at the drains, the light- 
ing, the heating, and the gas-stoves in the kitchen. 
Our staff of twenty got to work at once, and by 
four o'clock we had everything in readiness, and 
as the troops were already coming in, accidents 
might happen at any moment. 

By six 'clock, one ward of eight beds was fully 
equipped in every way; and by ten o'clock next 
morning both wards, the day-room with all its 
stores, and the kitchen were in full working order, 
and patients had already begun to arrive. 

At the end of the first fortnight it was realised 
that the accommodation was quite inadequate, and 
another pavilion was handed over to us in which 
we placed sixteen beds. This was opened at once, 
and we found it was necessary to shut a portion 
of it off to make a small isolation ward. Naturally, 
the moment a case was known to be infectious it 
was removed. 

At the end of the first month we handed over 



SOME OF THE WOEK IN LONDON 97 

the Hospital complete to a St. John Detachment, 
who ran it for a month and then handed it back 
to us. 

In the following January it was again found 
imperative to enlarge, so a corner of the Officers' 
Mess was given over to us to make yet another 
ward of nine beds. 

At the beginning of February an epidemic of 
measles made it necessary for us to equip a large 
empty pavilion in the neighbourhood, but it was 
run by a trained nurse and two orderlies, we only 
being responsible for supervision, laundry and 
food. 

We also had a very large Out-Patient depart- 
ment, where during the six months we treated 
some thousands of patients, exclusive of all inocu- 
lations which took place there. We supplied our 
own dispensary. 

Our staif consisted of myself, as Commandant 
in charge J 

1 Lady Superintendent, 

1 Matron, 

1 Quartermaster, 

5 cooks, 

1 dispenser, 

1 trained nurse for night duty, 

2 V.A.D. nurses :^or night duty, 

9 V.A.D. nurses for general nursing duty, 

1 clerk. 

The work was exceedingly heavy, as there was 



98 BRITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

such a constant changing of patients. Much of 
our equipment was improvised; all our stores, 
pack stores, cupboards, etc., consisting of sugar 
boxes built up, lined with glazed calico, and cur- 
tained off. We did all our own upholstery work, 
and put up our own shelves, etc. Our cooks were 
constantly complimented upon their cooking. 

When the time came for the Hospital to be 
closed we had very little notice, and we cleared 
everything up in three days, returning all stores 
to the Divisional store, packed for the most part 
in the sugar cases which had served as cup- 
boards. 

Since the troops left the White City it has been 
used for many other Government purposes, and 
there is a permanent Ambulance Station there 
where an old St. John Sergeant is in charge, to- 
gether with a trained nurse and a junior nurse. 

The modest, bare report of the work thus given 
by the Commandant must be embroidered, as it 
were, by the reader. We can fill in for ourselves 
with but little effort some rough idea of the work 
that this undertaking meant to that little band of 
V.A.D. members. 

The White City lies, as everyone knows, on the 
outskirts of London. It is not an easy place to 
get at, and the Detachment which had the work in 
hand came from one of the fashionable suburbs 
some miles away. Many of these members must 



SOME OF THE WOEK IN LONDON 99 

have had quite a long journey to get to their work 
in the morning and back again at night. 

It happened that it was during the winter, and 
bitter weather prevailed a great part of the time. 
Exhibition buildings are not the warmest of 
places, (except those which were fitted up as 
wards,) and there was of necessity a good deal of 
running between one building and another. Yet 
these devoted women took no credit to themselves, 
but just went straight ahead with the work in 
hand and accomplished it so well that they had 
high commendation for it from the Military au- 
thorities. 

WorJc at the 3d London General Hospital, 

In the early autumn of 1915, this same Detach- 
ment was detailed for work at the 3d London 
General Hospital, one of the biggest Military Hos- 
pitals in the Metropolis. It is situated on a large, 
open common and is magnificently equipped. 

More men had been wanted for the fighting 
forces or for Ambulance work on the field, and a 
great many orderlies in the Military Hospitals 
had been withdrawn for these purposes. Women 
in all grades of life had volunteered to undertake 
men's work, and women members of V.A. De- 
tachments were determined to try to fill the va- 
cancies caused by men orderlies being taken away. 
It was an experiment, but one that has proved 
most successful, not only in London but in France. 



100 BEITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEEES 

Eleven of the Detachment which had worked in 
the White City, including the Commandant, and 
three members from other Detachments went to 
the 3d London General Hospital for a month, and 
they did so well that at the end of that time many 
other Hospitals adopted the same idea. 

The Commandant says, **We worked in the 
Admission and Discharge office, the Stewards' 
Store, the linen store, the telephone-call office, the 
post-office, the main hall pay office, and we did the 
typewriting and secretarial work of the Hospital. 
At the end of the first month there were thirty- 
four members at work there in the places of men 
who had gone abroad on service. 

*^From there last March seven of us were de- 
tailed for France, and we are now working in the 
wards, the kitchens and the offices of a Hospital 
there, whilst I have charge of the Sisters' Mess." 

The Commandant adds that she cannot say 
enough for the loyalty and devotion that her mem- 
bers have shown since the beginning of the war. 
It is nice to hear a superior officer say that, but 
one has not much doubt of what the members 
would say about her. It is the old saying over 
again — **a good officer makes good men." 

It always interested me immensely to watch the 
methods of officers with their men on the troop 
trains as they went up to the Front. I came to 
the conclusion that the officer who could not get 
obedience from his men, or complained of their 



SOME OF THE WORK IN LONDON 101 

behaviour, was not the right man for his 
work. 

It is exactly the same thing in V.A.D. work. 
Almost invariably it lies in the hands of the Com- 
mandant of each Unit to make or to mar the work 
of the members. He or she can impart enthusi- 
asm, loyalty, devotion to duty, to an extraordinary 
degree by first setting a high example, and sec- 
ondly by attaching the members to himself or 
herself by the cords of personal affection and 
respect. 

Commandants who do not insist on discipline 
and on being properly treated will never make 
their members as efficient in their work as they 
should be. The member who respects himself or 
herself will take a pride in saying **Sir'^ to the 
Medical Officer and to all superiors whilst on duty. 
They will rise when a superior enters the room, 
and they will learn to keep their tempers whatso- 
ever the provocation may be. V.A.D. members 
are, in fact, a kind of extra arm to the Army, and 
should be glad to accept military discipline as a 
part of their training. 

The speech of a very raw V.A.D., who said, **I 
do not see that there is any need for some people 
to be seniors and some people to be juniors, be- 
cause we are all grown-up women," showed her- 
self not only lacking in common-sense but also un- 
fitted for the work. Seniority and rank there must 
be in every big organisation, and it is generally a 



102 BEITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEEES 

case of the * * survival of the fittest. ' ' The man or 
the woman who has taken the greatest trouble to 
learn the work almost invariably climbs the ladder 
to the higher places, and therefore has a right to 
be obeyed by those who have taken less trouble to 
equip themselves. 

There are still a few people who consider 
it is infra dig to bow to discipline, but as a 
matter of fact it is just the other way about, for 
no person can rule who cannot obey, and in 
honouring their superiors they are honouring 
themselves. 

The vast majority of V.A. Detachments have 
excellent discipline, and I would not like them as 
a whole to think that I am venturing to criticise 
them; but this seems to be an opportunity for 
saying just a word to any of those who may not 
have thought out the thing carefully, and who 
imagine that because V.A.D. members are volun- 
tary and give valuable time and services without 
any thought of reward, they should not be asked 
to submit themselves to strict control. 

There is a fascination about seeing a well- 
disciplined V.A. Detachment where they have 
learned to march well, to stand at attention when 
spoken to by a superior, to reply briskly and brief- 
ly, and to pay respect to the smallest detail that 
has been ordered by an officer ; above all it is good 
to see them draw themselves up sharply to atten- 
tion when the National Anthem is played, and to 




o 



m 



0) 



^ 



H 






^<1 



b 

o 






SOME OF THE WOEK IN LONDON 103 

stand with head erect and steady eyes until the 
last note has died away. 

These things seem to come naturally to men, so 
that the male Detachments are almost invariably 
excellent in all these ways ; but just here and there 
one comes across a women's Detachment which 
has not yet learned the inestimable value of strict 
discipline. 

After having travelled thousands of miles in 
order to see V.A.D. work, there are certain pic- 
tures left in my mind, and none are more vivid or 
more pleasant than those which recall the smart 
appearance of dozens of Detachments throughout 
the country where the members take a pride, not 
only in themselves and their conduct, but in their 
Detachment, which is to them a corporate body, in 
which the standard must be the highest. 

Discipline is no chimera or fantasy. Its effects 
permeate the whole work of the Detachment, and 
many a hasty word that has risen to the lips of a 
V.A.D. member, and has been checked simply be- 
cause she has been taught not to give way to her 
feelings, has prevented an uncomfortable scene in 
a Hospital ward. The good old Army rule of 
obey first and complain afterwards should become 
one of the mottoes of all V.A.D. members. 

Artists as Orderlies. 

The Colonel of a Military Hospital in London 
did not know where to turn to get orderlies, but 



104 BEITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEEES 

one day he had a bright idea, and that very even- 
ing obtained an introduction to a certain artists' 
club in Chelsea. 

He spoke to the members, telling them of the 
needs of the Hospital, and showed them how much 
they owed to the wounded men. Several of the 
members were over military age, or for other rea- 
sons had not felt able to enlist; but before the 
Colonel left the club that evening he had quite a 
long list of artists who had promised to enter the 
ranks the next day as E.A.M.C. orderlies. They 
kept their word and have done magnificent service, 
the majority of them being very weU known in 
the world of art. 

Of course they knew nothing about Hospital 
work, and it was highly amusing to hear one of 
them describe his experiences during the first 
weeks of work. He shaved off his beard of course, 
and was quite unrecognisable to his friends in his 
Tommy's uniform. 

Many of these men }iad never done a labourious 
day's work in their lives, and one of them had to 
be actually taught how to scrub by a ward Sister ; 
but against their ignorance of Hospital routine 
one can put their education and their anxiety to 
learn, and within a very few weeks they had fallen 
into the work as to the manner born. 

They do the ward work, the kitchen work, the 
garden work ; they go out on the convoys, and they 
take long journeys in charge of patients who have 



SOME OF THE WOEK IN LONDON 105 

to be escorted to Hospitals far away, and they 
have shown themselves to be men in the highest 
sense of the word. But the exceedingly clever lit- 
tle Hospital Magazine, which is issued monthly, 
proves that they have not forgotten how to wield 
pen and brush, for between its pages one finds 
some little gems of art, executed by Private This 
or Corporal That in his spare time. 

The war has turned the world topsy-turvy. 
Who would have expected to find an A.R.A. or a 
E.B.A. setting up beds in a hut ward or under- 
taking the thousand and one odd jobs which fall 
to the lot of a Hospital orderly? 



CHAPTER XI 

Air Raid an^d Othee Duties 

ALTHOUGH happily the damage done by 
^ Zeppelin bombs has been slight in compari- 
son with the effort made by the Germans, very 
full arrangements have had to be made to cope 
with any possible emergency. Great credit is due 
to the V.A.D. members, men and women, who 
undertake to be always ready to attend to acci- 
dents during an air raid. It is not an exhilarat- 
ing affair to be called out at eleven o'clock at 
night perhaps, to have to walk a mile or two to a 
central position, and to sit in a spot which is often 
not too warm, until the small hours of the morn- 
ing, when the walk home has to be made through 
the pitch-dark streets. 

On more than one occasion an exceedingly well- 
known woman of position, who has undertaken 
this duty as a V.A.D. member, has stopped at a 
coffee stall, and has been thankful to buy a hot 
drink to cheer her on her homeward way. I think 
the keeper of the coffee stall would have been a 
little surprised if he had known the identity of 
his customer, but it is only a typical case of doz- 
ens of others, for many highly cultured men and 

106 



AIR RAID AND OTHER DUTIES 107 

women, holding important positions during the 
day, have offered themselves for this particular 
night duty, because they can do that without in- 
terfering with their regular daily work, which in 
many cases is of supreme importance to the nation. 

The arrangements made, under the police, by 
each great city for calling up help in the event 
of air raids are extraordinarily complete. Usu- 
ally, the authorities know a few hours before a 
Zeppelin is likely to attack a city, and a carefully 
worded warning is sent forth to all the Ambulance 
people who must go on duty. They know exactly 
where they are to go, and most of them have 
'^Zeppelin bags," as they call them, packed ready 
with every kind of dressing, and with gas masks, 
which they can pick up and take with them at a 
moment's notice. 

I was delighted to see such a bag was hung on 
a special peg in the hall of a house of a V.A.D. 
member in one of the great Midland cities; she 
explained laughingly, **I always put my clothes 
ready so that I can get into them very quickly, 
and then as I fly out at the front door I pick up 
my Zeppelin bag, and am ready for anything that 
may happen." 

Some Sad Cases, 

If the Huns can find any satisfaction in know- 
ing that they are killing old men and women, and 
little children, let them read the following story : 



108 BEITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

In a certain suburb outside London, which has 
rows and rows of little houses occupied almost 
entirely by the poorer working classes, there lived 
an old couple who had worked all the days of their 
lives, and were eking out their narrow means as 
best they could, for they were both feeble and long 
past work. 

A bomb fell on the house and set it on fire, and 
these two inoffensive old people were burned to 
death before they could be rescued. The place 
burned like a match-box, and although the Ambu- 
lance men and the firemen made some gallant 
attempts to get up the ladders to the window 
of the bedroom, they were beaten back by the 
flames. 

One of the V.A.D. men who was on the scene 
described it bluntly, and without the least thought 
that he had played the part of a hero. After he 
had tried to get up the ladder to the old couple, 
he turned his attention to a mother and daughter 
who had been seriously hurt about the face and 
head. 

A little later on, a man rushed into the Police 
Station and announced that he was the caretaker 
of a certain Mission Hall, and that a bomb had 
come through the roof but had not exploded. He 
begged that somebody should go over and take it 
away, and of course it fell to the lot of an Am- 
bulance man to do this. He was perfectly calm 
about it, and even joked over it. He went in, 



AIR RAID AND OTHER DUTIES 109 

picked the bomb up, and carried it away in bis 
hand to a place of safety. 

A pathetic incident happened in connection with 
one of the air raids. A man who had been devoted 
to St. John Ambulance work for a great many 
years, and had undertaken air raid duty many 
times, was taken seriously ill, and actually died 
at the moment when the police arrived at his 
house to tell him to go on duty. It was quite 
appropriate that it should happen, in a sense, be- 
cause he was a man who had always put duty 
first; and certainly nothing but very serious ill- 
ness would have prevented him from going out to 
the succour of his fellow-beings. 

He was a workingman, who had given up every 
one of his Bank Holidays for nearly twenty years 
past to go on to one of the great open spaces in 
London to attend to the accidents which always 
occur on these holidays. He was a big, large- 
hearted, cheery man, from whom one never heard 
a grumble or a disagreeable word however hot the 
day or arduous the work. 

It has been my privilege to work with him on a 
great many occasions, and it always touched me 
deeply to see him attending to the children, for he 
had the smile and the winning ways that instantly 
comfort the little ones when they come to grief. 

When I heard about his sudden death, and how 
the police had wanted his aid at that very moment, 
it seemed to me absolutely typical of the man, and 



110 BKITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

he in his turn is typical of hundreds of members 
of V.A. Detachments. 

The man who tries to mount the ladder set 
against a burning house, or rides down the high- 
road with shrapnel falling about him, is surely as 
much a hero as he who gives succour to the 
wounded on the battle-field. 

How the Members Are Called to Duty. 

Perhaps it would be interesting to show exactly 
how the members are called up for **air raid 
duty." We will take, for instance, an outlying 
district of London, where there is a permanent 
Ambulance Station open day and night for any 
accident which may occur on the busy thorough- 
fares near-by. 

To the men on duty there at night the news of 
an air raid comes from the Fire Brigade Head- 
quarters. The Ambulance man on duty immedi- 
ately rings up six or seven cyclists who live near, 
and within a few minutes they axrive and take 
away little packets of cards which are ready pre- 
pared for them. On the cards is written the name 
of the station to which the Ambulance man is to 
go. 

The cyclist runs round, knocks at the door of 
each Ambulance man, and pushes the card into 
the letter-box, so that when the man comes down 
he takes the card and sees exactly where he is to 
be stationed. This method saves the time of the 



AIR RAID AND OTHER DUTIES 111 

cyclist, who does not have to wait to deliver a 
message. 

The public library in this district has been 
turned into an emergency Hospital with twenty- 
six beds, and altogether there are a hundred beds 
available in the neighbourhood ; whilst there are 
nine regular stations in the district where men 
and nurses are on duty. 

In the event of a fire, two Ambulance officers 
always go with the motor engine, carrying First 
Aid equipment with them; and following quickly 
upon their heels there goes an emergency gang of 
men, carrying picks and shovels to effect rescues 
if necessary. 

The duty of Ambulance men and women on the 
East Coast of England has been arduous in the 
extreme, for they have never been able to relax 
for one moment from the chance of having to 
attend to victims of air raids or bombardment. 

At all the towns on the East Coast there is an 
understanding between the authorities and the 
members of the Detachments as to the post they 
are to occupy directly they are called up. They 
turn out with their equipment and form dressing 
stations, and provide temporary Hospitals for the 
civilian population. 

In addition to this work, they meet all trains 
and convoys of wounded, and help to unload them 
and transport them to the various Hospitals to 
which they are allotted. 



112 BEITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

V.A.D. Roll of Honour. 

As the years of war increase, so our Roll of 
Honour lengthens. It is quite impossible to give 
a complete list of the V.A.D. men and women who 
have given their lives in the course of performing 
their duty ; but I should like to touch upon a few 
cases, in order to show the general public some- 
thing of the sacrifices that are being made, not 
once or twice, but constantly, in the ranks of 
V.A.D. workers. 

It will be remembered that very early in the 
war a Hospital ship went down, and a number 
of R.A.M.C. men were lost. Practically the whole 
of those men were Red Cross Volunteers. 

Then we lost men during the sinking of H.M.S. 
Cressy; whilst there have been only too many Red 
Cross members and V.A.D. men and women who 
have contracted dysentery or typhoid abroad, and 
have died. 

One St. John man, who was employed in one of 
H. M. Dockyards, was instructed to join a ship, 
which foundered four days after his mobilisation. 
Of him, his superior officer writes, *^I always 
found him a most efficient and painstaking officer, 
and I know his death was heard of with great 
regret in this neighbourhood.'' 

In August, 1916, it will be remembered that a 
troop ship was torpedoed on her way from Alex- 
andria to the Dardanelles. When she foundered 



AIR RAID AND OTHER DUTIES 113 

1,000 lives were lost and 600 saved. One Unit of 
the R.A.M.C, which was going out as a Casualty 
Clearing Station and was almost entirely made up 
of men from one part of England, was very hard 
hit. It lost two officers and fifty-five men out of a 
strength of eight officers and seventy-seven men. 
The ofiicer in charge in England writes thus : 
* * This fine Unit, which was thoroughly well organ- 
ized and equipped, was principally composed of 
trained members from the St. John Ambulance 
Brigade in . . . Amongst those lost were a ser- 
geant and five privates from the . . . Division, 
all well-known Ambulance men and highly thought 
of in civil life, so much so that a memorial serv- 
ice was held in the town on receipt of the sad 
news." 

Qnich Work, 

One might easily fill a book with stories of quick 
work accomplished by members of V.A. Detach- 
ments ; but I will give a few instances just to show 
the kind of thing that is happening every day 
amongst the members. 

Suddenly six men were wanted as stretcher- 
bearers for France. The authorities telephoned 
through to one of the Red Cross centres in London, 
and the officer there, knowing that a drill was 
taking place in Regent's Park, sent a messenger 
otf in a taxi with the very simple object of taking 
six men away from the drill and sending them 



114 BEITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

across to France. This was done, and in the space 
of one hour from the moment that the telephone 
call was received the men presented themselves 
for duty, and crossed the Channel that same eve- 
ning. A V.A.D, member must, indeed, be ready 
to go anywhere and do anything at a moment's 
notice. 

Another time a telephone call came to a Red 
Cross office from a Hospital, saying that one of 
the patients had become seriously delirious and 
must have a special attendant. The staff of the 
Hospital was already overworked, and they 
wanted a man sent down immediately. Within 
half an hour from the time the telephone call came 
in a Red Cross member was by the bed of the 
delirious man. 

In the very early days of the war a party of 
Red Cross orderlies was sent to one of the big 
French towns. It was during the terrible retreat 
from Mons, and fearing that possibly the Germans 
would get into the town, the French people had 
blown up the bridges all round. It was necessary 
for the orderlies to get into the town, and so they 
improvised a bridge of planks and crawled across 
the river with imminent peril to their lives. 

Members of Red Cross Units have worked in 
Hospitals in Italy, in Petrograd, in Salonica, 
Malta, Cairo, Servia, Luxor, Alexandria, Monte- 
negro, Palermo, Corfu, and in many other foreign 
countries. 



AIR RAID AND OTHER DUTIES 115 

Wlien there was a sudden and serious outbreak 
of typhoid amongst the French patients in a cer- 
tain French town, there came an urgent appeal 
for ten V.A.D. Englishwomen to nurse them. In 
a couple of days that little band of nurses was 
hard at work amongst the typhoid patients in a 
town situated in the heart of France. 

Some of the noblest work, because of its lowly 
character, is done by V.A.D. men and women, who 
are at strenuous work all day, but give up a part 
of their nights to go into Hospitals for the pur- 
pose of cleaning utensils which have to be kept 
bright. The overworked staff of a Hospital very 
often finds that it is the **last straw'' to have to 
keep all the pots and pans and the brass fittings 
as bright as they should be kept in a well-managed 
Hospital. 

It occurred to some V.A. members, who could 
not possibly give time in the day, that this par- 
ticular kind of work could be quite easily done at 
night, far away in the kitchens whilst the patients 
were asleep; and in hundreds of cases men and 
women have given up a portion of their night's 
rest in order to go and do this lowly task. 

On the same high level there comes the work 
of two girls who earn their own living in a West 
End shop. They have to be at the counter at 
8.45, and since they live in a northern suburb of 
London, they have to spend a good bit of time in 
the daily journey. They discovered that a West 



116 BEITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

End Hospital was greatly in need of help in the 
early morning hours, and they offered to go and 
cook the breakfasts for the patients and the staff. 
They rose at five o'clock every morning and 
went direct to the Hospital, where they showed 
themselves to be excellent cooks and steady work- 
ers. By eight o'clock they had been able to tidy 
up after the meal was finished, and they then went 
on to their work. This wonderful bit of **duty" 
is still going on, and is only an example of what 
many women are doing in different districts. 

Pillows for the Wownded, 

There came a requisition suddenly to the St. 
John warehouse that a large number of pillows 
should be sent down to Charing Cross Station to 
go off by a certain train. Suitable pillows had 
to be sorted out and packed, but well within the 
hour a messenger arrived at Charing Cross with 
the pillows and put them on the train. 

Turning a Convent School into a Hospital, 

A fine piece of rapid work was carried through 
by a Sussex British Red Cross Detachment. Part 
of a girls' Convent School had been offered as a 
Hospital, and on a certain Saturday evening in 
the early months of the war a call came from the 
Military authorities for accommodation for some 
thirty or forty wounded. 

The Commandant of the Detachment called to- 



AIE EAID AND OTHEK DUTIES 117 

gether her members, and they all set to work. The 
children who were at school in the Convent were 
put into one-half of the building, which was di- 
vided off by boards; but in their half were the 
kitchen and many of the necessary offices. 

Thus it came about that the V.A. members had 
to induce gasfitters and plumbers to set to work 
at once to convert a class-room into a kitchen, and 
a conservatory into a scullery. One room on the 
ground floor was turned into an admirable little 
operating theatre fitted with up-to-date equipment, 
all of which was lent. Beds, of course, had to be 
set up in all the rooms, and cupboards were hastily 
improvised until lockers could be obtained. 

The Commandant had been warned that the 
patients (Belgians) would probably arrive in a 
sorely dirty condition, and she was determined to 
run no risk of having her newly cleaned Hospital 
soiled. A tent therefore was borrowed and set 
up in the grounds quite close to the front door, 
and this was warmed and made comfortable. Here 
the volunteer orderlies undressed the wounded 
men, washed them as far as possible, then wrap- 
ping them in warm blankets carried them into the 
Hospital and put them to bed. 

Since that day there has seldom been an empty 
bed in the Hospital, for the Inspecting General 
declares it to be on a level with the best of all 
those in his district. 



CHAPTER XII 
y.A.D. Work in Ireland 

IRELAND has not been behindhand in the mat- 
ter of V.A.D. work, for long before the war 
broke out there were several St. John and B.R.C.S. 
Detachments scattered throughout the island. 
Under the energetic leadership of Dr. J. Lumsden, 
Director-in- Chief of the B.R.C.S. and St. John Am- 
bulance in Ireland, a very large amount of good 
work has been done, both by men and women mem- 
bers of V.A. Detachments. 

In the neighbourhood of Dublin there have been 
six Auxiliary Military Hospitals established 
largely by voluntary efforts. Dublin Castle, the 
first to be equipped, is a very fine place, and of 
course Dublin University makes a magnificent 
Hospital. Then there are the Princess Patricia 
Hospital at Bray; Monktown Hospital; Temple 
Hill Hospital, Black Rock; and Glenmaroon, 
Chapel Izod. 

Dublin Castle Hospital has been entirely run by 
the City of Dublin Branch of the British Red Cross 
Society; but the other five have been staffed 

118 



V.A.D. WOEK IN lEELAND 119 

jointly by St. John and B.R.C.S. members; and 
it is delightful to know that this intermingling of 
the two societies has been entirely successful. 

The more the members work together the bet- 
ter must be the result, for now that we have a 
Joint Committee of representative men from the 
two Societies, every effort should be made to bring 
the members together in their work. Ireland 
seems to have done this particularly well, and as 
a matter of fact the Territorial Force Association 
members work in with the other two Societies 
without any kind of friction. 

It was arranged that all the Units when mo- 
bilised should come under the control of the Joint 
V.A.D. Committee for Ireland. It was not in- 
tended in any way to interfere with the old ma- 
chinery of either of the Societies, but that when 
mobilisation took place the Joint V.A.D. Com- 
mittee should be in supreme command. 

Once again let me say that I am giving promi- 
nence to the work in and around Dublin simply 
as being the centre and heart of Ireland, as it were, 
and therefore suggestive of what is going on in 
many parts of the island. 

It is hoped that before long a *' limbless" Hos- 
pital will be established at Bray. It will be run 
on the same lines as the one at Eoehampton, Lon- 
don, where such marvellous things have been done 
in supplying artificial limbs to men who have lost 
their arms and legs. 



120 BRITAIN ^S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEEES 

Male V.A, Detachments in Ireland, 

There are quite a number of these, and the mem- 
bers have distinguished themselves by their very 
excellent service, especially during the Sinn Fein 
Riots, about which I shall have a good deal to say 
later on. 

Directly war was declared, about five hundred 
St. John members (male) were mobilised for Mili- 
tary Home Hospitals and Sick Berth Reserves. 
Upwards of three hundred Nursing Sisters volun- 
teered for service in Military Hospitals at home 
and abroad, and a large number of women volun- 
teered for special service as clerks, cooks, and 
dispensers. 

SicJc Soldiers on Furlough. 

The Nursing Sisters of V.A. Detachments in 
Ireland have been doing some excellent work in 
visiting sick soldiers on furlough. Very often a 
man obtains permission to go to his home whilst 
he is still more or less ill, and it has meant a great 
deal to these men to be able to have the attention 
of a nurse. 

Bocks and Railway Termini WorJc. 

Great assistance has been rendered to the Re- 
ception Committee at the Docks and railway ter- 
mini by V.A.D, members. 



V.A.D. WORK IN IRELAND 121 

Massage, 

Massage, electrical, and radiant heat treatment 
have been given to a very large number of men 
by Miss Poole and her many skilled and willing 
helpers. 

Worh Parties. 

Throughout Ireland there have been instituted 
working parties where Hospital comforts are 
made. The Irish War Hospital Supply Depots 
have done particularly good work throughout 
the country. They were inaugurated by the 
Marchioness of Waterford, who has given a great 
amount of time to the work with admirable results. 
She has 1,200 members on her books, and an 
average attendance of 120 a day. This alone 
shows the enormous amount of work which is 
turned out. For instance, 148 bales were dis- 
patched between December and April of last year. 

Hospital Ships in the Liffey, 

To the many Hospital ships which came into 
the Liffey, much assistance has been given 
by the 200 trained stretcher-bearers who offered 
their services. They assisted the Military and the 
Irish Automobile Club members in convoying the 
wounded from the Hospital ships to the various 
city Hospitals. These stretcher parties were made 
up of St. John and B.R.C.S. members, and have 



122 BRITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

merited the praise which has been showered upon 
them because of their prompt and careful move- 
ment of injured men. 

Jomt Clothing Depot, 

Over one hundred thousand have been dis- 
patched to the Front by the Joint Clothing Depot, 
which has been run by the County Dublin Branch 
B.R.C.S. and St. John. A very large party of 
ladies have ungrudgingly given their time day 
after day to this work. 

Spagnum Moss Industry, 

In connection with this a new departure has 
been made — antisepticising the Spagnum Moss 
after it has been put into bags. The bags are 
soaked in corrosive sublimate, which is then 
squeezed out by passing the bag through a man- 
gle. The Spagnum Moss is then hung up to dry 
for two days. 

Voluntary Stamp Saving Service. 

A band of young ladies undertook to deliver let- 
ters and circulars in and about Dublin for all war 
Societies and so save stamps. 

Irish V.A.D, Motorist on German Soil, 

Some members of the Irish V.A. Detachments 
(male) volunteered to go out with Motor Ambu- 
lances to assist the French Army, and they have 



V.A.D. WORK IN IRELAND 123 

done a marvellously good work. So far the Allies 
cannot claim to be running over much German 
ground, but here is an Irish V.A.D. member who 
has been driving his Motor Ambulance backwards 
and forwards over German soil for many months. 

Writing home from the neighbourhood of Al- 
sace, he explained that he had just been moved 
from one part of France to another. **The Gen- 
eral shook hands with us all round before we 
started, and a band played us off. We remained 

at R about ten days, and then came on to 

our present Headquarters, which are four miles 
from the Alsacian frontier, and twenty miles be- 
hind the firing line. 

' ' The work here is quite different from what we 

have been accustomed to at C We have 

been frightfully busy, and for ten days none of 
us had our clothes off, and the only sleep we had 
was in our clothes and in a barn. The work is 
made very difficult owing to the mountainous na- 
ture of the country, and the fact that the roads 
are nearly always covered with deep snow and ice. 

*^ We had three main spheres of operation; evac- 
uating the wounded from the firing line to a Clear- 
ing Station, work between the Clearing Station 
and four Hospitals in the valley behind the 
trenches, and evacuating from these Hospitals 
over the pass across the Frontier. The worst part 
of our work is between the firing line and the 
Clearing Station. 



124 BRITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

**The wounded are carried on mules to the 
Dressing Station on the top of a plateau, and from 
there we take them down the mountain to the 
valley. The road is so steep in places that if a 
car has to stop it cannot start again without help, 
and it is so narrow that cars can only pass in 
certain parts. 

'^The whole road is often under fire; but about 
three hundred yards of it are absolutely wrecked 
by shell fire, and three days ago the two sheds on 
the top were blown to bits. The valley is also 
bombarded nearly every day, and last week we 
had four bombardments and an air raid in one 
day. Several of our cars have been hit, but so 
far none of us has been hurt. 

^^ We have to do a great deal of work at night as 
well as all day. We all wear steel shrapnel hel- 
mets here, and carry respirators, so you can im- 
agine something of what our conditions are. You 
will be glad to hear that the car is going well, and 
has been on German soil for three weeks." 

With regard to what men members are doing, 
it is specially interesting to know that those who 
cannot undertake orderly or such work are help- 
ing at the Irish War Hospital Supply Depot. 

In February, 1916, the Men's Section was 
formed for the manufacture of splints of all pat- 
terns, bed rests, bed tables, crutches, etc. A big 
building at the rear of 40 Merrion Square was 
fitted up as a huge workshop, and very soon many 



V.A.D. WORK IN IRELAND 125 

expert amateur carpenters joined tlie ranks of 
workers, whilst others less experienced were con- 
tent to act as * labourers/' 

Consignments were sent to Mesopotamia, Sa- 
lonica, and to the Expeditionary Force in France, 
and in response to urgent appeals all sorts of 
Hospital comforts and necessities were dispatched 
to the Verdun front, and to other Hospitals work- 
ing under the Croix Rouge. Gifts of timber and 
other necessary materials have been received from 
kind donors. 

In April of 1916, a Metal Splint Department 
was started with great success. Splints are made 
after consultation with leading surgeons of H.M. 
Forces, some thirty voluntary workers giving 
their services every afternoon or evening. 

Nearly half the material employed is waste 
metal, the clippings or remnants from sheet metal 
which are thrown out from large manufacturing 
shops being utilised. Much material hitherto al- 
most worthless has been pressed into use. 

The damaged wings, mud-guards, and panels 
of motor cars, when cut up by powerful shears 
and beaten into shape by willing hands, come to 
form cup-like supports for fractured limbs. The 
worn-out cauldron, bath, or galvanised tank is still 
capable of being converted into valuable surgical 
apparatus. 

Combinations of work are called for, inviting 
the united abilities of many trades, and there is no 



126 BEITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

man who is skilled in any direction who cannot 
find useful scope for it in this magnificent work. 

Metal splints are flexible and therefore permit 
the surgeon to bend them so that they will exactly 
fit the injured limb. The metal is also very light, 
which gives it an additional value over wood, and 
it is easily cleaned and disinfected. 

Here is another branch of V.A.D. work which 
is almost exclusively performed by men, and it 
would be well if more Hospital Supply Depots 
started a Men's Section of this kind. 

In the Central Depot (Dublin) there are about 
thirteen hundred enrolled workers. Then there 
are a hundred affiliated sub-depots throughout 
Ireland. All the work is done with the greatest 
economy, the expenses being carefully watched. 

In several instances luncheon and tea rooms for 
the worker have become channels for profit, these 
rooms being managed so well that they make a 
surplus which can go towards paying for the light- 
ing and heating of the premises. Each worker, 
though a volunteer, not only pays for meals sup- 
plied, but also pays for the privilege of being a 
worker. 

In the Surgical Dressing Depot the scraps and 
clippings of materials are made into pads, swabs, 
cushions, etc., and in the Men's Section no odd 
piece of metal is allowed to be thrown away. 

Ireland indeed may well be congratulated upon 
her voluntary war work. 



CHAPTER Xni 
V.A.D. Work in the Sinn Fein Eiots 

THE Sinn Fein Riots gave a sad but unique 
opportunity to Ambulance and Red Cross 
workers in Ireland of showing how they could 
cope with an emergency. The mischief, it is true, 
had been brewing for a long while, but few people 
realised that it could ever come to anything seri- 
ous, and practically all the work that was done 
for the wounded was arranged on the spur of the 
moment. 

Of all the magnificent pieces of work carried 
out by V.A. members during this devastating war, 
there has been nothing to surpass that which was 
accomplished in Dublin during those awful days 
when the rioters let loose their violence upon the 
city and its inhabitants. 

From St. Patrick's Day, Friday, March 17th, 
1916, up to Easter Monday, April 24th, the fire 
smouldered, with flashes of flame here and there, 
which gave an indication of what might be ex- 
pected when the general outbreak occurred. On 
Easter Monday at noon the storm burst in Dublin, 
and for the following six days the city and suburbs 
were the scene of grave loss of life and destruction 
of property. 

127 



128 BEITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

Dr. Lumsden issued a detailed report of the 
work done by Ambulance and Red Cross workers 
during the rebellion. The members, he said, lost 
no opportunity of rendering First Aid to soldiers, 
civilians and rebels alike. The general efficiency 
of the various Detachments was fiercely tested and 
not found wanting. Members performed duty in 
all the zones where fighting took place, and it is 
sad to say that some of them were killed and in- 
jured in the course of their work. 

The wounded were collected by men and nurses, 
who went on foot and in Ambulance wagons, ren- 
dering First Aid and taking patients to Hospital 
under circumstances of great danger and diffi- 
culty. 

The first move towards the organization of First 
Aid work in the rebellion was made by the late 
Corps Superintendent Holden Stodart, who on 
Easter Monday telephoned to the Military offer- 
ing help. Two days later this heroic officer was 
killed, and his death made an impression through- 
out the Red Cross workers in Ireland which will 
not fade. 

Mr. Stodart, who was only thirty-three, was 
one of the strongest supporters of the St. John 
Ambulance Brigade in Dublin, and since the out- 
break of the war had rendered valuable service as 
a Superintendent of the Brigade. To the work he 
devoted himself with the whole-hearted enthusi- 
asm that characterised everything he did. 




Lady Superintendent-in-Chief's 
indoor uniform. 



V.A.D. WORK IN SINN FEIN RIOTS 129 
Wlien the rebellion broke out in Dublin he was 
the senior St. John Ambulance officer then in the 
city, and the Military authorities were only too 
thankful to accept the help which he offered. His 
was an arduous task, for he organised bodies of 
Ambulance workers to take duty at the various 
Hospitals. Despite obstacles that might have 
seemed insurmountable to another man, he gath- 
ered his forces and placed them where their serv- 
ices were most needed. Once the organisation 
was complete, he settled down to carry on his own 
work under his superior officer, who had by then 
arrived on the spot. 

The St. John Ambulance Brigade since the re- 
bellion has awarded medals and certificates to a 
number of the officers who distinguished them- 
selves in the work of the riots, but at present the 
Chapter-General of the Order of St. John of Jeru- 
salem has no power to award posthumous honours. 
In the report which was issued of the work, it is 
well said that those who knew Mr. Stodart best 
are content to think that 

" Better than martial woe, or the burden of civic sorrow. 
Better than praise to-day, or the statue we build to-morrow, 
Better than honour and glory, from history's iron pen, 
Is the thought of duty done, and the love of fellow men." 

The War Office has decided to place the officers 
and men of the Red Cross and St. John Ambulance 
Brigade working during the riots in the same po- 
sition with regard to pensions and compassionate 



130 BEITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

allowances as the equivalent ranks in the Army, 
and in pursuance of this liberal policy the widow 
and child of Mr. H. Stodart have been granted the 
pension and allowance of a Lieutenant killed in 
action. 

It was whilst Mr. Stodart was proceeding with 
a stretcher party to the relief of a wounded sol- 
dier that he was shot, and instantaneously died. 
His heroic death and noble example will ever be 
remembered amongst those who serve under the 
white eight-pointed star of the Ancient Knights of 
St. John. 

Pemhroke Bed Cross V.A.D, 

It chanced that on the Monday of the outbreak 
a member of a B.R.C.S. V.A. Detachment passed 
the Royal City of Dublin Hospital when the first 
of the wounded G.R. Volunteers arrived. He sent 
a message to assemble his Detachment, and they 
immediately took up duty in the various Hospitals. 
Some of them took in wounded men on stretchers 
under circumstances of great danger. 

Mr. Dickson of this Detachment was specially 
mentioned for his good work in connection with 
the running of the Rathmines Ambulance. On 
Wednesday the 24th it ran from Portobello Mili- 
tary Hospital to Beggars' Bush Barracks, being 
in danger of being shot at all the journey. Dur- 
ing that night he made five journeys with the Am- 
bulance, and in the following two days he made 



V.A.D. WOEK IN SINN FEIN RIOTS 131 

several journeys and assisted in evacuating some 
of the cases, and also in taking drugs and neces- 
sities to the small Hospital at Beggars' Bush. 

DifftcuUies of the WorJc. 

Imagine the conditions under which the work 
was carried out. The tram and train service had 
ceased; postal and telegraph facilities no longer 
existed. The telephone service was completely 
controlled by the Military, and all the usual ways 
and means of communication were cut off; yet 
obstacles were surmounted by the V.A.D. mem- 
bers. 

One of them was repulsed by the insurgents at 
two places, but succeeded in getting through at 
the third ; another was twice fired at whilst driv- 
ing a Motor Ambulance, and a third walked twelve 
miles out of his direct route in order to get through 
to his destination. 

Richmond Hospital was the centre of the area 
where fierce fighting took place. As the danger 
increased, the beds were placed on the floor to 
avoid bullets fired from the housetops. In the 
middle of the week food ran short at the Hospital, 
and Miss Hezlett, the Lady Superintendent, co- 
operated in the organization of an expedition to 
obtain more. On a white sheet the words '* Rich- 
mond Hospital Supplies" were marked with black 
type, and Dr. Pollock and two students, bearing 
this banner, took out a borrowed horse and cart. 



132 BEITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEEES 

In spite of having to go through some hot firing 
they returned safely with supplies. 

At the Rotunda Hospital food almost gave out, 
and extreme economy had to be practised. Even- 
tually, when a gallant friend sent down food on 
a van, the driver was fired at, but luckily got 
through unhurt. 

Gas was cut off on Tuesday morning, and the 
electricity on Wednesday. Working in semi-dark- 
ness added enormously to the difficulty of the sit- 
uation. The nursing staff, however, maintained 
a wonderful degree of calmness under the stress 
of work, whilst there was an accompaniment of 
roaring cannon and spitting bullets. 

Ambulance Patrol. 

On Easter Tuesday it was decided to start an 
Ambulance Patrol with its Headquarters in Har- 
court Street Railway Station. Day by day the 
cars ran the gauntlet of bullet-swept streets, being 
frequently struck by shots. Dangers, always pres- 
ent by day, increased a hundredfold by night. The 
darkened streets had to be negotiated without 
the aid of lights. The voluntary drivers were 
wonderful in the way they kept up a high speed 
and yet managed to take their load of wounded 
men through in safety. 

Glass was everywhere. Tram wires, coiled in 
big loops, lay about, and in one place a huge 
length of telephone wire coiled itself round the 



V.A.D. WORK IN SINN FEIN EIOTS 133 

wheels of a car. In the daytime the drivers had 
to memorise the danger spots where houses and 
walls were down, so that they should not rnn 
amnck at night. Many a time the drivers were 
asked to go and fetch wounded men across a dan- 
gerous area, and in every case they just *' cranked 
up" their cars and went without a word. 

When the ordinary cars could get no further 
there was an armoured motor car which carried 
stretchers right into the thick of the fight. It 
would turn broadside so as to give the stretcher- 
bearers as much shelter as possible from the 
snipers. 

The bearers would lie down and wriggle along 
the streets, pulling the stretchers after them. It 
is never easy to load a stretcher with a wounded 
man, but add to the difficulties pitch darkness and 
the fact that you must yourself lie on the ground 
and it becomes apparently impossible. But the 
impossible was achieved again and again by these 
gallant men, who did their duty as simply and as 
courageously as those other Red Cross men who 
are working on foreign battle-fields against a com- 
mon foe. These bearers often had to walk half a 
mile under cross fire. 

Gallant Conduct, 

Amongst so many instances of gallantry and 
conspicuous courage it is difficult to mention any 
names in particular. For instance, Mr. Henry 



134 BEITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

Olds was inf ormed that a wounded man was lying 
on O'Connell Bridge. He- hastened there and 
found that a blind man had been seriously 
wounded. 

First Aid was applied, but whilst he was put- 
ting on the bandage he was himself shot in the 
shoulder. This, however, did not prevent him com- 
pleting his work, and he managed to bring the man 
to a place of safety before he became unconscious 
himself. 

On Wednesday work was allotted to a great 
number of St. John officers and men who wished 
to assist, a room being placed at the disposal of 
the Brigade in the City of Dublin Hospital, Baggot 
Street. 

Corrig Castle Red Cross Hospital. 

Dr. Reginald Peacocke, Assistant County Direc- 
tor of the County of Dublin Branch of the 
B.R.C.S., speaks highly of the work done by the 
V.A.D. members, especially at Corrig Castle Red 
Cross Hospital. 

There was a continuous procession at the Hos- 
pital of refugees, amongst them being two stokers 
from H.M.S. **Tara," who had been liberated 
by the Duke of Westminster's armoured car ex- 
pedition, and who were passing through Kings- 
town on their way home, but were unable to 
proceed. 

Owing to the great difficulty in procuring food, 



V.A.D. WOEK IN SINN FEIN RIOTS 135 

bread had to be baked and butter churned on the 
premises, some of the V.A.D. members being on 
duty for fourteen hours a day, whilst the Matron, 
Miss Harris, Commandant, was on duty for three 
days and three nights continuously. 

The British Red Cross branches of the City and 
County of Dublin took a large share in the work. 
Mrs. Heppell-Marr, Assistant County Director of 
the City of Dublin Branch, was at her post at 29, 
Fitzwilliam Street, each day, and many members 
of the B.R.C.S. Detachments took their share in 
carrying the wounded in under fire. The offices 
at 29, Fitzwilliam Street, were converted into a 
temporary hospital, the V.A.D. members collect- 
ing supplies from the public. This Hospital con- 
tained fifty beds. 

Another Hospital, with twenty-five beds, was 
set up at 32, Fitzwilliam Square. 

Refugee Women and Children, 

All kinds of duties were taken over by the De- 
tachments, whilst isolated members helped refugee 
women and children, gave assistance at the 
B.R.C.S. Dressing Stations, carried bales of dress- 
ings on stretchers to the various Hospitals, fed 
the starving poor and rendered First Aid to 
civilians. 

One Detachment started a Canteen for soldiers; 
another kept a Canteen going at the munition 
works throughout the riots. 



136 BEITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

Women Stretcher-Bearers. 

In pre-war days many were the discussions as 
to whether women could or should do stretcher 
work. The women V.A.D. members in Ireland set- 
tled the question once and for all because an enor- 
mous amount of stretcher work was carried out by 
them most successfully. 

There were not nearly enough men to do this 
work, and the women showed not only their knowl- 
edge of how to do it, but their complete indiffer- 
ence to danger when it became a matter of duty 
that they should go out and rescue wounded people 
in the shell-swept streets. They made regular 
tours in the city, and rendered First Aid to the 
wounded before they brought them into the Hos- 
pitals. 

Filling Gaps, 

All sorts of gaps were filled by the devoted 
members of V.A. Detachments during that terrible 
week in Dublin. At the Castle Hospital it was 
found that there was exceeding difficulty in get- 
ting the laundry work done. V.A.D. members 
volunteered to do it, and everything went well. 
Washing, cooking, kitchen work — it did not mat- 
ter what it was, what kind of labour was required ; 
it was all cheerfully and capably undertaken by 
V.A.D. members. 



;V.A.D. WORK IN SINN FEIN RIOTS 137 

Ella Wehh, M.B, 

Dr. Ella Webb, Lady District Superintendent 
of S. J.A.B., and member of the Joint V.A.D. Com- 
mittee for Ireland, rendered splendid service dur- 
ing the rebellion, for she organized Hospitals, and 
cycled through the firing line continuously. She 
visited the City Hospitals day by day, ascertain- 
ing their needs and giving all possible assistance. 
She and Dr. Lumsden were both awarded silver 
medals by the Chapter-General of the Order of 
St. John of Jerusalem for their services during 
the week of the riot. 

Dr. Webb, in the report which she issued later, 
remarks that she was particularly struck with the 
two great lessons which the V.A.D. members had 
learned ; the first was to be plucky, resourceful and 
competent, and the second was to obey. She says : 
**I was particularly struck with the way in which 
members took their orders to devote themselves 
to dull, arduous and uninteresting work with the 
same cheerfulness as to nursing in the wards.'' 

Dr, John Lumsden, M.D. 

Dr. John Lumsden, M.D., Knight of Grace of 
the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, Deputy Com- 
missioner of the St. John Ambulance Brigade, 
Director General of the Joint V.A.D. Committee 
for Ireland, showed extraordinary courage 



138 BEITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEEES 

throughout the rebellion. He was always in the 
thick of the fight. 

An eyewitness, speaking of his work, said : ^^His 
conduct was simply magnificent. He is the bravest 
man I ever saw. He coolly and calmly knelt in 
the middle of the road attending to the wounded 
soldiers, while bullets were fired from the houses 
on both sides. He helped the men into the Ambu- 
lance wagons himself, sent them off, and waited 
until they returned, and during all the time he was 
under a heavy cross fire." 

He was under fire for several hours together. 
Day by day the Ambulance cars ran the gauntlet 
of bullet-swept streets. The dangers increased 
a hundredfold by night, when the streets, shrouded 
in darkness and encumbered by obstacles, had to 
be negotiated without the aid of lights. Ambu- 
lances were frequently struck by shots whilst on 
their journeys. 

In one house where six or seven wounded sol- 
diers were found the men managed under these 
conditions to get the wounded loaded on to the 
stretchers and into the armoured cars in safety. 
Two bearers had very narrow escapes, bullets 
passing through their clothing; one stretcher 
handle had its end knocked off. Several bullets 
struck the armoured car as it left. 

Another typical feature was the extreme care 
and correct handling given by the stretcher-bear- 
ers amidst the most nerve-trying conditions. 



:V.A.D. WOEK IN SINN FEIN EIOTS 139 

Their first thought was for the comfort of the 
patient, and the best method of ensuring his safe 
and comfortable transport. 

The Military casualties during the insurrection 
amounted to some ^ve hundred, and the civilian 
losses in killed and wounded amounted to more 
than a thousand, so some idea may be formed of 
the emergencies under which the Ambulance men 
and women of Dublin worked during that week. 

Nursing Detachments, 

The chief piece of work undertaken by the Nurs- 
ing Divisions was the transformation of the War 
Hospital Supply Depot in Merrion Square into a 
temporary Hospital. This was carried out in the 
amazingly short time of three hours. 

Dr. Ella Webb sent out messages at noon to 
members to report themselves, and at 2 p.m. girls 
began to arrive, though in many cases their jour- 
neys had been hazardous. At ^ve o'clock that 
afternoon an amputation was being done in the 
improvised operating theatre, and quite half of 
the thirty beds were already full. 

Dr. Webb says in her report: '*As this work en- 
tailed the carrying in by hand of all mattresses, 
beds, bedding, and utensils from the neighbouring 
houses, and the clearing away of large, heavy 
work, tables with which the rooms were originally 
filled, it is a performance of which the V.A.D, 
members have every right to be proud." 



140 BRITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

Auxiliary Hospitals, 

Seven Auxiliary Hospitals were equipped by 
other Detacliments. In one case a Hospital was 
helped by a band of ladies who organized an all- 
day working party for dressings, etc., and a food 
supply party. Large quantities of both food and 
dressings were provided. 

Too much praise cannot be given to the ladies 
of the Red Cross Branches of the City and County 
of Dublin for the work which they performed dur- 
ing the rebellion, and it is impossible here to men- 
tion the individual acts of gallantry which were 
done by many members. 

A great many temporary Hospitals were 
equipped and made absolutely ready for the re- 
ception of patients, which happily were never used, 
as the rebellion was quickly quelled by the au- 
thorities. 

Kingstown Men's Detachment. 

This Detachment was mobilised, and on Thurs- 
day, April 27th, twelve of them left Kingstown 
and marched into Ballsbridge, and reported to 
the M.O. in command of the R.A.M.C. there. On 
the following day they returned to Kingstown, and 
did excellent work at Corrig Castle Hospital. 

Many Military and Naval refugees arrived at 
the Hospital, which added considerably to the 
work of the staff, as they all had to be fed and 



V.A.D. WORK IN SINN FEIN RIOTS 141 

housed, the majority of them remaining about ten 
days. A number of soldiers were brought in on 
Tuesday, including an R.A.M.C. Captain who had 
been wounded, and a number of men suffering 
from vaccination fever. Shortly afterwards there 
arrived five Queen Alexandra nurses on their way 
to King George V Hospital. In fact, there was a 
continuous procession of refugees, both Military 
and civilian. 

There was such terrible difficulty in procuring 
bread that the kitchen was turned into a bakery, 
and even butter was churned on the premises. 
Some of the V.A.D. members were on duty day and 
night. 

Ccmteens. 

Canteens were opened in various places so that 
the soldiers on duty might be fed, and these were 
for the most part entirely run by V.A.D. members. 
Of one lady who was in charge of a Canteen, it 
is recorded that she never went off duty for eleven 
days, taking only snatches of sleep in a chair. 

Smart Work, 

The Misses J. and R. Fitzpatrick first reported 
to the Military authorities the seizure by the Sinn 
Feiners of various points of vantage. During the 
whole of the rebellion they worked in the hottest 
and most dangerous fighting zone. They warned 



142 BRITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEEES 

the incoming soldiers and troops and acted as 
guides to them. 

They gave First Aid to any number of wounded 
Military and civilians, and they carried the 
wounded from under fire to places of safety. They 
provided food for the soldiers in the trenches on 
the Canal bank, and elsewhere, and all the time 
they were passing to and fro, their garden being 
under a severe cross fire from troops and rebels. 

^A Dramatic Incident. 

It was on the Wednesday evening following 
Easter Monday that the Sherwood Foresters 
marched towards Dublin into the death trap that 
awaited them in the neighbourhood of Northum- 
berland Road. Into the inferno the Lady Super- 
intendent and nurses of Sir Patrick Dun's Nurs- 
ing Home bravely set forth at about four o'clock 
i,n the afternoon. They were the first on the 
scene, and they improvised stretchers out of 
quilts. 

The resident medical staff of the Hospital were 
also gallantly engaged in this rescue work, and 
between them they carried seventy-nine wounded 
men, including soldiers and rebels, into the Home. 
This work went on from four in the afternoon 
until midnight. Men and women alike rendered 
aid under fire with the utmost coolness and 
courage. 

A soldier who had been for many months in the 




Outdoor uniform of a Lady Super- 
intendent-in-Cliief. 



.V.A.D. WORK IN SINN FEIN RIOTS 143 

trenches in France and happened to be in Dublin 
on leave during the riots told me that he had 
never seen hotter fire than that which swept the 
streets of the Irish capital. 

Sir Patrick Dun's Hospital became full to over- 
flowing with wounded, and its approaches were so 
constantly swept with rifle fire that it was found 
necessary to throw open the Maternity Hospital 
for the treatment of casualties. In all some forty 
bullet wounds of a shocking nature were treated 
at the Hospital, twelve of them proving fatal. 

The priests attached to St. Andrew's Church, 
close by, were constantly in the thick of the dan- 
ger, ministering to the wounded and dying. 

It is satisfactory to know that the Sinn Feiners 
always respected the sign of the Red Cross and 
never deliberately fired upon an Ambulance or a 
Hospital. 

Enough has been said to give some slight notion 
of the magnificence of the work which was carried 
out by each and every Detachment in the district 
where the riots took place. Instances of personal 
courage there were without number, and although 
we can only mention a few here as being typical 
of all the others, we are glad to know that their 
services have been recognized by the War Office 
and by the authorities of the Red Cross Societies. 

Terrible indeed it was that such an occasion 
should ever arise; but since the thing happened 
one can only be thankful that there was already 



144 BBITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEEES 

prepared a body of men and women, eJSiciently 
trained, capable and willing, who could deal with 
the emergency. 

Of doctors and regular trained nurses there 
could not have possibly been anything like enough 
to cope with the situation, and there can be no 
doubt that the work of the V.A. Detachments in 
Ireland proves how invaluable they are to a coun- 
try whether it be at war or enjoying peace. 

One can scarcely dare to imagine what would 
have happened to those hundreds of wounded men 
and women in the streets of Dublin during that 
awful week had there not been this devoted band 
of voluntary workers who had trained themselves 
in the principles of First Aid, of stretcher-bear- 
ing, and of elementary nursing. 

The work which was done by the V.A. Detach- 
ments in the Sinn Fein riots alone must prove to 
the whole world how necessary it is that patriotic 
men and women should identify themselves with 
the Voluntary Aid Detachment movement, learn- 
ing not only the principles of how to render help ' 
under such circumstances, but perhaps the even 
more important matters of discipline, and of car- 
rying out any bit of work which comes to hand 
and which is an infinitesimal fragment in the de- 
sign of Mercy which was pictured for the world 
by the pioneers of Eed Cross work. 



CHAPTER XIV 

V.A.D. WoEK IN France 

"T^ESTINATION unknown !' ' Soldiers are 
JL/ not tlie only people who cross the seas know- 
ing not at all the place for which they are bound, 
for many V.A.D. members step on board the Chan- 
nel boat with no more definite instructions than 
** report yourselves at Headquarters in Bou- 
logne." It is only one more of the odd experi- 
ences which war has given to some of us and no 
one quarrels with it. 

The principal V.A.D. Commandant in France, 
Miss Rachel Crowdy, R.R.C., has a big task on 
her hands, but she handles it with masterly skill, 
with broad common-sense and, above all, with jus- 
tice. She shows no favour to British Red Cross 
Society members, although she was a member of 
that Society some years before the war broke out, 
and she puts St. John or British Red Cross So- 
ciety members into this or that post simply ac- 
cording to their suitability. I can speak from 
personal experience of her sense of **fair play'' 
(a quality in which women are supposed — quite 
wrongly — to be lacking), and no words can express 

145 



146 BRITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

the esteem in which I hold her after having worked 
under her for nine and a half months. Directly 
a woman V.A.D. member arrives in France she is 
absolutely under Miss Crowdy's control, so that 
this lady, young though she be in years, holds all 
the threads of V.A.D. work, which stretch like a 
vast cobweb over the war zone in France. 

First of all let me try to give you a picture 
of the work in its entirety. There are hundreds 
of V.A.D. members working as nurses and order- 
lies in the great Military Hospitals at the various 
Bases; there are dozens of members working in 
the same way in Auxiliary Red Cross Hospitals ; 
there are members who spend their whole lives 
on railway stations, attending to the wounded as 
they come straight down from the firing line. 
There are Units of girl motorists who drive am- 
bulances, and dozens of others who run canteens 
for convalescent soldiers who have not had the 
luck to be sent to England and who are sadly in 
need of the understanding word given by a woman 
whilst she ministers to their physical comforts. 
Some V.A.D. members do nothing but clerical 
work, many being engaged in the sad labour of 
trying to trace '* Missing" men. This is a spe- 
cially self-sacrificing bit of work, it always seema 
to me, for it means close work in an oflfice from 
morning to night, often with but small results. 
When, however, a man is traced, the joy of the 
relatives surely more than repays the worker for 



V.A.D. WORK IN FRANCE 147 

much which must sometimes seem to be labour in 
vain. 

There are altogether thirty-three different 
kinds of V.A.D. Units in France ! Following our 
instructions, we will first go to the Headquarters, 
which is a big Hotel that has been entirely taken 
over by the Joint Committee. Here all the heads 
of Departments have offices. Miss Fletcher, Chief 
of all Trained Nurses in France, has an office here 
and works in great harmony with Miss Crowdy. 
The Trained Sisters have learned to appreciate 
the work of V.A.D. members and freely acknowl- 
edge that they could not possibly manage without 
them; whilst on the part of the members they 
give respect and willing obedience to the skilled 
women who have spent years in acquiring their 
knowledge of nursing. There is wonderfully lit- 
tle friction, considering the enormous number of 
people who have been thrown to work together 
suddenly and under som,ewhat difficult circum- 
stances. 

Here again we get a very valuable fusion of 
classes. Difficulties arise abroad which can never 
be encountered in England, and it is, perhaps, the 
surmounting of these obstacles which tears down 
any of the old feelings of opposition and makes 
the majority of workers labour together in mar- 
vellous accord. 

There is something very fine in seeing a group 
of V.A.D. members at work at a little Outpost in 



148 BEITAIN^S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

France, some of them wearing the Red Crosses 
upon their aprons, which show them to be mem- 
bers of the British Red Cross Society; whilst 
others wear the white eight-pointed star, which 
signifies their membership of St. John. Each one 
is proud of her own Society, and the unimportant 
differences are frequently discussed with consid- 
erable interest; but it is rare indeed to trace a 
bitter word, or to note a suggestion of superiority 
on the part of either the one or the other. 

Women in the highest ranks of society are con- 
tent to scrub and clean ; many a highly intellectual 
woman is working in the kitchen or the pantry or 
the linen-room of Hospitals in France, with dog- 
ged determination to overcome the awful fatigue 
entailed by these physical labors. Surely these 
women can take place side by side with the cul- 
tured men who have enlisted and have uncomplain- 
ingly endured the rough food, the hard sleeping- 
places, the companionship of men utterly apart 
from themselves in taste, in order that they should 
take their place in the great fight. 

Miss Rose Macaulay, in her poem '^Many Sis- 
ters to Many Brothers," says very truly: 

" Oh, it's you that have the luck, out there in blood and muck : 
You were born beneath a kindly star; 
All we dreamt, I and you, you can really go and do. 

And I can't, the way things are. 
In a trench you are sitting, while I am knitting 

A hopeless sock that never gets done. 
Well, here's luck, my dear; — and you've got it, no fear; 
But for me ... a war is poor fun." 



V.A,D. WORK IN FRANCE 149 

Women must needs be content with doing the 
humbler jobs which go to build up the defence of 
our Empire. 

In France the workers are brought face to face 
with the horrors of war. Down at the Base Hos- 
pitals they have the men coming in direct from 
the trains which have brought them from the 
trenches, and their condition is pitiable beyond 
words. But even more, the members who are 
placed further up the line get a glimpse of the 
conditions under which our men fight. 

**I do not suppose I really understand a bit 
what it is like," said a V.A.D. member to a young 
officer; **but it was bad enough to see the men on 
their way down to the Base just a few hours after 
they had been hit. ' ' 

**I think you have a very good understanding,'' 
he returned. *^You get your stories first-hand; 
and whilst everything was fresh in the minds of 
the men they would be likely to speak more openly 
than they do after some days have elapsed." 

*^I noticed that," said the girl. **Men coming 
down from the firing line, with their clothes torn 
off their backs by the barbed wire, and first with 
field dressings on their wounds, would * blurt out' 
things which I never heard from a man in Hos- 
pital. It was as though they were obsessed with 
the horror of it all, and although I never once 
heard a grumble or a bad word, they let little facts 
drop which, pieced together, have taken definite 



150 BEITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

form in my mind. It is exactly as if I had been 
putting together a jig-saw puzzle, for all the odd, 
queer remarks made by these men who had been 
in the trenches actually fighting the enemy only 
a few hours previously are gradually assimilated 
by one's mind; and after a time one finds uncon- 
sciously that there grows a complete and inefface- 
able picture, as it were, in one's brain." 

That is really the secret of the difference of the 
work abroad and at home. Undoubtedly there 
are V. A. members who go forward with their work, 
carrying it through most excellently, but without 
ever touching on the inner side of war; but the 
majority feel it is the greatest privilege that has 
ever fallen to their lot to have been allowed to 
see beneath the surface, and to get some faint 
knowledge of what the men suffer for honour's 
sake. 

The Network in France. 

Here again we will follow the same plan as that 
which we pursued in England. I will try to give 
you a glimpse of the network in France, and show 
you what men and women V.A.D. members are 
weaving there for the benefit of our soldiers. Nat- 
urally out there the majority of men are in the 
Army, and for the most part it is the women who 
are engaged in V.A.D. work, though there are 
numbers of men over military age who are ren- 
dering magnificent service to the Joint Societies. 



CHAPTER XV 

Red Ceoss and St. John Hospitals in Feance. 

THERE are in France a great many large Hos- 
pitals which come under the general term 
of Red Cross Hospitals. This means that they 
are not General or Stationary Military Hospitals, 
but are kept up by Red Cross funds and are staffed 
by Red Cross members, though in every case fully 
trained Sisters are in charge of the wards. 

Naturally these Hospitals form a very large 
field of operations for V.A.D. members, both men 
and women, for there are a good many posts which 
must be filled by men, and in which voluntary 
workers of over military age are giving signal 
service. 

For the first year of the war a large number of 
Red Cross orderlies were used in these Hospitals, 
but it became necessary that they should be re- 
leased for other work, and women belonging to 
V.A. Detachments came forward eagerly to fill 
their places. 

For instance, in a very large Hospital in one 
of the big French towns, which is an English Base, 
something like a hundred men orderlies were re- 

151 



152 BRITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

leased, and their places were taken by girls, who 
have proved great successes as orderlies. When 
it is remembered what it means to be an orderly 
in a Hospital, we cannot but admire these women, 
most of them highly educated and delicately nur- 
tured, who have thrown themselves into the gap 
made by the departure of the men, and who cheer- 
fully carry out the arduous labour which falls to 
the share of the orderly in Hospital. 

In these Red Cross Hospitals the work for 
V.A.D. members is apportioned with the greatest 
care. There are those who have had some nurs- 
ing experience who are put into the wards to act 
as probationers under the Sisters. When there 
is a big push on, and the Hospital is filled to over- 
flowing by wounded men who come down direct 
from the Front, these girls have the chance of 
proving themselves exceedingly useful to the Sis- 
ters. 

In many cases they have benefited by their year 
or so in Hospital to such an extent that they can 
be perfectly well trusted with certain responsible 
tasks, and Matrons and Sisters have constantly 
told me when I have visited various Hospitals 
that some of the experienced V.A.D. members are 
quite as good as regular staff Hospital nurses. 
This is high praise, because a fully trained woman 
realises that no risks must be taken where a 
wounded man is in the case ; and a V.A.D. nurse 
must show herself not only conscientious and 



EED CROSS IN FRANCE 153 

hard-working, but really capable and efficient, be- 
fore she is put into any position of trust. 

I have known V.A.D. members who have been 
given charge of wards (always under the super- 
vision of a Sister of an adjoining ward) who have 
been theatre nurses, who have acted as * * specials ' ' 
to very serious cases, who have looked after iso- 
lation patients, and who have had under their 
charge a large number of German wounded. 

In fact, there is no kind of nursing work which 
has not been carried out at one time or another 
by a V.A.D. member ; but it must be remembered 
that there are an infinite number of grades of 
knowledge amongst these members, from the fully 
trained Sister who gives her services voluntarily 
and is a V.A.D. member herself down to the girl 
who has never taken even a First Aid certificate, 
but has enrolled herself under the General Service 
Regulations of the Voluntary Aid Movement. It 
is a great pity that there has come to be a general 
notion on the part of the public that -'V.A.D." is 
synonymous with * * untrained. ' ' They are not un- 
trained, neither are they often ''fully trained." 

All of these grades of workers are to be met, 
and it is exceedingly interesting to visit them and 
see exactly what is being done. In one Hospital 
in France, which I know very well indeed, two 
fully trained nurses who had belonged to Volun- 
tary Aid Detachments long before war broke out 
have given their services for over two years. 



154 BEITAIN'S CIVILIAN V0LUNTEEE9 

They are very fully qualified women, and they em- 
phasize the fact by being able and willing to do 
anything and everything that comes to hand. 

Naturally they take the responsible part of the 
nursing, but they nobly share in the lowlier tasks 
of the Hospital when they threaten to overwhelm 
the staff. These fully trained Sisters take their 
turn to get up in the early morning and light the 
fires, and when there is extra pressure in the 
kitchen or in the house, by reason of the sudden 
illness perhaps of a member of the staff, they 
cheerfully and capably put their hands to the 
plough. 

This is an example which must not be over- 
looked, because it calls for a special kind of praise 
and appreciation. The fully trained women who 
have joined Voluntary Aid Detachments and have 
thus become V.A.D. members have absorbed the 
spirit of the movement, and instead of looking 
down upon their members who are only half or 
quarter trained, as it were, they realise the valu- 
able work done by the humbler folk in this great 
organization. 

Linen Store-keepers, 

The linen store of a great Hospital gives a rare 
opportunity for the display of organization and 
method on the part of its keeper. 

At a certain Eed Cross Hospital, where there 
are 500 beds, between 5,000 and 6,000 articles go 



RED CROSS IN FRANCE 155 

to the laundry each week, and of course there are 
a large number in reserve. Imagine the chaos 
of having soiled sheets and pillow-cases running 
into hundreds if there were not a wonderful 
method employed. 

This work is almost invariably done alone by 
one or two V.A.D. members. They spend their 
lives in the store, receiving soiled and giving 
out clean linen, but their task does not end 
there, since every torn or worn article must be 
mended before it is allowed to go into the Hospital 
again. 

The linen is kept strictly on Military principles, 
and the first sight of the books which are sent 
down by the Military authorities is quite enough 
to frighten the ordinary woman; but the linen 
store-keeper bravely tackles them and surmounts 
all difficulties. She gradually falls into the rou- 
tine, which is much easier than it looks, and it is 
a rare occurrence for one of these Red Cross Hos- 
pitals to lose a single article, though it must be 
acknowledged that the store-keeper goes through 
many an anxious moment when she thinks some 
such disaster has befallen her. 

The linen store room becomes a kind of centre 
to which everyone goes who wants a job of needle- 
work done quickly. In one of the big Red Cross 
Hospitals in a French town a St. John V.A.D. 
member has created a very enviable character for 
herself, because she is always willing to help in 



156 BEITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEEES 

all sorts of ways those who are in '^sewing'' dif- 
ficulties. 

At Christmas time she showed her ingenuity by 
making fancy-dress costumes at very small cost, 
to he worn by those who were entertaining the 
patients ; and once when a Lieutenant got his pro- 
motion almost at the same moment that he had or- 
ders to move on to another town, she deftly added 
his stars and stripes to his tunic in an incredibly 
short space of time. He was particularly anxious 
to have his new rank shown for special reasons, 
and was most grateful to the store-keeper, as no 
tailor in the town would have undertaken the job 
in the allotted time. 

The linen shelves are kept with exquisite tidi- 
ness, and the orderlies have been so inspired with 
the charm of neatness that they take as much 
pride in the appearance of the store-room as the 
store-keeper does herself. 

There is a huge amount of mending and making 
to be done of all kinds, from putting delicate 
stitchery into dainty toilet accessories down to 
mending a carpet which ^^has seen its best 
days," as the member said when she looked 
up, smiling, from the unwieldy fabric in her 
hand. 

When there is a convoy going out to ''dear old 
Blighty" the store-keeper has a busy time of it. 
Sometimes she sees from her window a man lying 
on a stretcher without slippers, muffler, or helmet, 



EED CEOSS IN FEANCE 157 

and she rushes out and puts them on before he is 
carried away. 

Work starts at 7.45 a.m., and the store-keeper is 
supposed to lock up and get away at seven o 'clock 
in the evening, having had her usual time off dur- 
ing the day; but very often odd jobs turn up which 
necessitate her going back to the store and putting 
in an hour's work or more before she goes to bed. 

A complete system of ** chits" is used in the 
store, everything that is wanted in the wards being 
asked for on a chit by the Sister in charge. These 
chits are copied and filed for further reference. 
All laundry bills are checked before they are paid, 
and a complete record is kept of everything that 
goes into the store or leaves it. 

St. John Brigade Hospital. 

One of the many wonderful sights to be seen 
in France during these war months is a certain 
northern seaport which has become nothing more 
nor less than a town of Hospitals. 

I had travelled all night under circumstances 
which were more warlike than comfortable. I had 
immensely enjoyed the luxury of washing my face 
and hands, in spite of the fact that the only utensil 
to hand was a saucepan, and in the very early 
hours of the morning we slowly steamed into the 
little station which has become an important one 
for war work. 

I had been fortunate enough to be sent on a 



158 BRITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEEES 

special mission to visit the St. John Ambulance 
Brigade Hospital, and the twenty-four hours I 
spent there have left a strong impression upon me. 

As we approached the little town by the long 
bridge which crosses the estuary there my atten- 
tion was drawn to marvellous sights. There on 
the ridge of sand-dunes were lines and lines of 
white tents, intersected here and there by groups 
of brown wooden huts. That was in the early 
days of the war, but in the course of time the 
tents were made less conspicuous, and in many 
places were entirely replaced by huts. 

An Ambulance had been sent to meet me, and 
as I sat on the front seat and we dashed over the 
cobbled stones of the quaint little town whilst it 
was still only 6 a.m._, I was conscious of a thrill, 
and also of being the recipient of a great privi- 
lege in being allowed to see the inner working of 
this great Hospital only a few weeks after it had 
been opened. 

From the very beginning the Hospital was en- 
tirely under the control of Sir James Clark, Chief 
Commissioner of the St. John Ambulance Bri- 
gade, and it has been entirely maintained by sub- 
scriptions given direct to it. 

It is, in fact, the modern outcome of the won- 
derful work which was founded by the Knights 
of St. John in the Eleventh Century. A flag of 
the same device as that which they flew in those 
days floats now over the Brigade Hospital, and 




Outdoor uniform of a Com- 
mandant of V.A.D. 



EED CKOSS IN FEANCE 159 

the entire staff of the Hospital are men and women 
who are closely connected with the St. John Ambu- 
lance Brigade, which forms a very important part 
of the Ambulance Department of the Order of 
St. John of Jerusalem in England. 

In the vast majority of cases members of the 
Brigade are also members of Voluntary Aid De- 
tachments, so that in writing about V.A.D. work 
in France it would be quite wrong not to make 
some reference to the work of this Hospital, which 
is said by the Military authorities to be one of 
the finest in France. 

In some respects its equipment is better than 
any other, and its staff has been chosen with such 
extreme care that the working of the whole place 
goes on oiled wheels. 

The site on which the Hospital stands is a beau- 
tiful one, for it occupies a large area on sand- 
dunes which rise some little way behind the sea- 
shore. The wards are large huts which will ac- 
commodate some thirty beds, and at the end of 
each ward there is a small kitchen and all lavatory 
arrangements, with a clever ventilation shaft, as 
it were, between the ward and its kitchen and the 
sanitary portion. All the wards are connected 
by wooden corridors, which are open at the sides 
but have roofs, so that the nurses and orderlies 
are always under cover when they pass from one 
part of the Hospital to another. 

J!h.e quarters for the Matron and Sisters occupy 



160 BEITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEEES 

one long building, whilst a smaller one is given 
over to the V.A.D. nurses. The orderlies also 
have excellent quarters across the road, and there 
is a nice building which acconunodates the medi- 
cal staff. 

There are 580 beds in the Hospital, and about 
fifty-two fully trained Sisters are employed, with 
a staff of twenty-four V.A.D. members under 
them. The food is all cooked by orderlies, but 
the parlour-maid and housemaid work is entirely 
undertaken by V.A.D. members. 

The Hospital, which is now in charge of Lt.- 
Col. Trimble, E.A.M.C., who has for many years 
been an enthusiastic St. John worker in Lanca- 
shire, is run on extremely economical lines, the 
Matronship being held by Miss Constance Tod, 
R.E.C. 

Lt.-Col. Trimble, in speaking of the nursing 
staff, says: ** After my experience in this Hos- 
pital I can safely say that no body of women could 
have discharged their duties in a more conscien- 
tious, kind and painstaking manner than the 
trained Sisters who have served with us. They 
have really been most self-denying in every pos- 
sible way in the interests of the patients placed 
under their charge.*' 

**I would just like to add a word respecting our 
V.A.D. members. All who have come to us have 
had their minds made up to make themselves use- 
ful in every way possible. Our rule has been that 



EED CROSS IN FEANCE 161 

these girls have had to manage the Sisters' Mess. 
They have had to keep it tidy, serve the meals, and 
do general washing np, having a couple of order- 
lies to assist them. 

^* With regard to their work in the wards I have 
no words of praise that would quite meet what 
they have done. Many of them had considerable 
nursing experience in other Hospitals before com- 
ing to us. Others had little or none. 

*^ After a year and a half's work there are many 
of our V.A.D. members whom I consider very 
capable nurses, and so good are they that it is an 
everyday occurrence that these girls are placed 
in absolute charge of wards, both medical and 
surgical. 

**It would be superfluous to comment upon the 
manner in which their work has been discharged, 
but I can safely say that no body of girls could 
have entered more thoroughly or seriously into 
their duties, with the result that the work is ex- 
cellently done in every respect. The trained Sis- 
ters now acknowledge that they have found the 
V.A.D. members very helpful associates and most 
agreeable companions. The patients love and re- 
spect them, for, like the trained Sisters, they have 
been more than conscientious in everything they 
have done." 

That the work of these girls has been exception- 
ally good is shown by the fact that twelve of them 
have been honoured by the Order of St. John of 



162 BRITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

Jerusalem by being made Honorary Serving Sis- 
ters of that Order. This distinction is only given 
after very careful consideration by the Chapter 
of the Order, and then cannot be bestowed without 
the approval of the King. 

Quite a number of distinguished people have 
taken regular work in this Hospital, amongst them 
being Lady Perrott, R.R.C., Lady Superintend- 
ent-in-Chief of the St. John Ambulance Brigade. 
From the day war was declared Lady Perrott has 
worked unceasingly, but necessarily, from her po- 
sition in the Brigade, a great deal of it has had to 
be administrative work discharged from Head- 
quarters. 

Happily she knows the work practically as well 
as from the point of view of a Chief, and on va- 
rious occasions she has taken the place of a V.A.D. 
member in Hospitals in England as well as in the 
Brigade Hospital in France. 

In the latter she worked regularly for some 
time, and this was a matter of congratulation to 
all those who love the Brigade, and who know quite 
well that its usefulness to the nation has depended 
not a little upon the fact that every one of its mem- 
bers, from the highest to the lowest, has to be fully 
qualified in those arts of First Aid and elementary 
nursing which may well be called the backbone of 
all ambulance work. 

There is something very poetic and very fine 
in having a great Hospital in France run entirely 



BED CEOSS IN FEANCE 163 

under the auspices of the Brigade, with the Chief 
Commissioner at the helm, with the Lady Super- 
intendent-in- Chief working there regularly for a 
time, and with every post filled by Brigade mem- 
bers. This gives another aspect of V.A.D. work 
of which no more need be said, for much can be 
read between the lines by those who are inter- 
ested. 

In connection with the Brigade Hospital in 
' France there has now been opened a Depot in Lon- 
don, where all sorts of Hospital equipment will be 
made. Halkyn House, Belgrave Square, has most 
generously been placed at the disposal of the La- 
dies' Committee of the Order of St. John by Earl 
Beauchamp, and the work of making bandages 
and dressings will be carried out there on a very 
extensive scale. 



CHAPTER XVI 

Rest Stations in Feance. 

AS one steps off the Channel boat on to Bou- 
XV logne Quai, the first thing to strike one for- 
cibly is the change which war has brought about 
in the French town. There are still a few French 
porters running about in their blue smocks; but 
they are all old men or exceedingly young ones, 
and to every Frenchman there are at least two 
English Tommies, or so it seems. 

The wearing of a recognized Red Cross uniform 
smooths the way for one extraordinarily so far 
as the Customs are concerned because the authori- 
ties know quite well that every member who is sent 
out is put on his or her honour only to carry legiti- 
mate articles. 

During the early part of the war there was a 
wonderful Stationary Hospital which the Military 
authorities had built up in goods sheds close to the 
Quai, and it was my privilege to be allowed to go 
through it. 

The Stationary Hospitals now employ many 
V.A.D. members ; but at the beginning of the war 
military hospital work was entirely carried out 
by Military Sisters and R.A.M.C. officers and men. 
It was perfectly wonderful to see how these old 

164 



BEST STATIONS IN FEANCE 165 

sugar sheds had been converted into a good, clean, 
cheery Hospital. 

In the entrance there sat a non-comn^issioned 
officer, who took down the particulars of each case 
as it was brought in and assigned to it a bed in a 
special ward. The stretcher-bearers would then 
take the case on and would put the patient to bed 
with the assistance, if necessary, of one of the 
Army Sisters. 

In the first shed, which had been turned into a 
great ward, there were rows upon rows of beds. 
The shed had been whitewashed, and on the walls 
there were pinned coloured pictures from the 
** Christmas Annual," conspicuous amongst them 
being several portraits of the King and Queen. 
At one end of the ward there were tables strewn 
with magazines and games, where the convales- 
cent men could amuse themselves, and at the other 
end a portion was cut off as a dispensary and 
dressing room, where ** walking" cases could come 
for re-dressing. 

Turning to the right, there was a very large 
ward devoted to the saddest of all the cases, as 
it seems to me — to the men who had suffered in- 
jury to the eyes. The light here was kept very 
dim, but many of the men were chatting together, 
and the Sisters seemed to be particularly cheery. 

Another portion of the Hospital was given over 
to the men who had been gassed. It made one's 
heart ache to see them gasping for breath, but it 



166 BEITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

was good to hear that many new remedies had 
been discovered, which made the percentage of 
recoveries very much larger than they were at 
first. 

During the advances after the terrible retreat 
this Hospital was crowded out; so much so that 
one of the Army Sisters told me she had often 
seen a stretcher with a patient upon it under every 
bed. The Doctors and the Sisters and the entire 
staff worked night and day during these pushes, 
and all honour to them be it said that they kept 
their Hospital up to a high standard of efficiency, 
and that they themselves remained optimistic and 
undismayed. 

At that time Boulogne was in a very different 
position, from the military point of view, from 
what it is to-day, and they never knew from one 
moment to another what orders might come 
through about a general evacuation. 

This is but a glimpse at a Military Hospital, 
for it has no direct bearing on the work about 
which I am writing; but I could not pass it by 
without adding an humble word of appreciation. 
This particular Military Hospital is only typical 
of the huge numbers which exist all over France 
and England, and no poor words of mine can give 
any adequate idea of the amount of self-sacrifice 
which has been put into the upkeep of thes« Hos- 
pitals by the devoted men and women who staff 
them. 



BEST STATIONS IN FRANCE 167 

Across the wide, cobble-stoned road we make 
our way to the big railway station in Boulogne, 
which is the parent, as it werCj of all Rest Stations 
in France. 

In the very early days, when things were still 
chaotic, a little band of V.A.D. members under 
the command of Mrs. Furse, R.R.C. (who has since 
become Commandant-in-Chief), established by 
permission of the Military authorities a Rest Sta- 
tion there. 

During the great advances, when we get thou- 
sands of wounded, many of them happily being of 
a minor character, the regular Hospital trains 
cannot possibly carry them all. The rail heads 
(the furthest points to which the railways can 
run near the firing line) become choked up with 
wounded men, and the first necessity is to get rid 
of them and send them down to the Base Hos- 
pitals. 

There is a system in the Army by which every 
wounded man wears a distinctive label to show 
whether his wound is serious or not. The serious 
cases are put at once on the regular Ambulance 
trains, which are most wonderfully fitted up with 
an operating theatre and kitchens, and which carry 
three Medical Officers, three fully trained Sisters, 
and a great many R.A.M.C. orderlies. The road 
is more or less cleared by the railway authorities 
for these Ambulance trains, and they make the 
journey down to the Base in fairly good time. 



168 BEITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEEES 

But what is to be done with the thousands of 
** walking" cases which cannot be put upon Ambu- 
lance trains ? They are men with wounds of very 
divers character, some of them very slight, some 
of them severe, but none vital nor likely to become 
dangerous to life. They have all been dressed 
either at a Field Dressing Station or at a Casualty 
Clearing Hospital. 

They are put on an ordinary train in the charge 
of one Medical Officer, who has with him a staff 
of R.A.M.C. orderlies. The train is rationed, and 
it is sent off on its journey. This journey may 
take many hours, and in order to give the men a 
chance of a hot drink and, where necessary, of 
having their wounds re-dressed, Eest Stations 
have been set up at various junctions, where the 
train can halt for something under an hour and 
the men receive attention. 

Perhaps it would be wrong to say that the Eest 
Station work in France is the pride of the V.A.D. 
Headquarters Staff, because it is invidious to pick 
out any one kind of work and say that it is better 
than another ; but it is true that the members who 
work on French railway Eest Stations have had 
to cope with emergencies, improvise all sorts of 
articles almost out of nothing, meet unheard-of 
difficulties with calmness and promptness, and 
have lived under harder conditions, perhaps, than 
any others who are at work in France. 



BEST STATIONS IN FEANCE 169 

The First Unit to Go Abroad, 

It was on October 16th, 1914, that a Unit, com- 
posed of sixteen members and two trained nurses 
drawn from Voluntary Aid Detachments, was 
mobilized for foreign service, and went out under 
the charge of Mrs. Furse. First of all the Unit 
was sent to Paris, and then it was returned to Bou- 
logne, one more trained nurse and two members 
being added to its strength. 

Accommodation in the town was extremely diffi- 
cult to find, and on October 26th the Unit took over 
three French wagons and two passenger car- 
riages, turning them into a dispensary, a kitchen, 
and a Quartermaster's store, the members them- 
selves doing all the necessary scrubbing, cleaning, 
and painting. This was no light task, as can be 
imagined when you remember the condition in 
which French railway wagons are likely to be. 

Within twenty-four hours one thousand 
wounded men had been fed, the cooks having only 
three small alcohol stoves with which to work. 
Into this one sentence is compressed a long and 
wonderful story of what can be done by a devoted 
band of women. Perhaps to the reader it does 
not sound very much ; but turn your mind for one 
moment to what really must have happened dur- 
ing those twenty-four hours. 

It could not have been easy to get the food, to 
begin with. Utensils would be scarce ; the heating 



170 BEIT AIM'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

of enormous quantities of water on three small 
alcohol stoves presents a difficulty in itself which 
would appall many of us. It was October, and 
the wdather would not be too warm; and the 
amount of physical exertion in running about col- 
lecting the necessary equipment, and then of dis- 
tributing the food to one thousand wounded men, 
would be strenuous, to say the least of it. 

'*In. order to cope adequately with the great 
volume of work, stoves were fitted into the wag- 
ons during the following days, and various 
shelves and cupboards were put up by the mem- 
bers." 

That is as the official report puts it; but as a 
matter of fact those wagons were turned into 
really charming rooms, bright with clean white 
paint, gleaming tin utensils, and even with com- 
fortable chairs made out of barrels. It was, in 
fact, a triumph of improvisation. 

As though they had not already got their hands 
sufficiently full, the R.T.O. (Railway Transport 
Officer) asked the Unit if it could billet nightly any 
sick men requiring shelter. The work was under- 
taken immediately, and the men were put into rail- 
way carriages whenever they needed accommoda- 
tion for the night. 

After working for one week an abnormal num- 
ber of wounded began to arrive, and on Monday, 
November 2nd, the resources of the Unit were 
taxed to the utmost, 2,300 wounded being fed dur- 



EEST STATIONS IN FEANCE 171 

ing the day, and over 200 dressings being done 
in the wagons by the Sisters with the help of 
two members and three other trained nurses who 
had been hastily called for the emergency. 

The authorities saw that more facilities must be 
given for the work, and on the following day two 
more wagons were supplied, one to act as a re- 
serve store and one for the use of the staff, and 
a general Dressing Station was erected by the 
platform. The sanitary arrangements were im- 
proved, and a motor Ambulance was put at the 
disposal of the Unit, one of the members being 
appointed as driver. 

Boy Orderlies, 

Eight boy orderlies from an East Lancashire 
V.A.D. were attached to this Unit, with an orderly 
Superintendent and two orderly Quartermasters, 
and proved themselves to be of invaluable assist- 
ance. 

During those first weeks the Unit seems to have 
gone out of its way to look for work, although it 
must have been overwhelmed by it already. It 
took in, sorted, and distributed hundreds of mag- 
azines biweekly to fourteen Hospitals. It under- 
took to make sand-bags, bandages and pad splints 
for many of the Military Hospitals, which were 
then in urgent need of these things, as the War 
Depots at home had not got into full going order. 
Ever since then a very large number of dressings 



172 BEITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

and padded splints have been turned out by the 
members of the Boulogne Rest Station. 

The food which was supplied to the wounded 
consisted of soup, cocoa, bread and butter, ham, 
cheese, chocolate, apples and bananas. Hundreds 
of medical and surgical cases have been dealt with 
by the Sisters, and the one Ambulance attached to 
the Unit has conveyed a huge number of cases 
to and from Hospitals. 

At Christmas time presents were given to every 
one of the men travelling on Ambulance trains, 
and thousands of cigarettes and papers were dis- 
tributed. A very large number of sick men have 
been billeted on the Unit for single nights, and 
have been fed and, where necessary, given skilled 
nursing. 

Members who go out to France as V.A.D. mem- 
bers are expected to take things as they find them, 
and to make the best of everything. Discipline is 
strict, and they are not allowed to question the 
decision of those in authority. A girl may be 
put into the kitchen and do nothing but cut up 
vegetables or washing-up for weeks together. 
There is a sigh of contentment from the members 
who are lucky enough to be put '*on the trains,'' 
as it is called, when they actually help in the 
feeding or the dressing of the wounded men; 
but they are far too well disciplined to make 
any remark as to their private wishes on the 
subject. 



EEST STATIONS IN FRANCE 173 

This little party of pioneers set tlie pace, as it 
were, in the matter of discipline, and it has been 
nobly upheld by all those who have followed in 
their footsteps. 

Thousands of Dressings. 

This first Rest Station is still in existence, and 
an enormous amount of work has been carried 
through since the new push began in July, 1916. 
Some rooms in the station have been given up 
by the railway authorities, and the V.A.D. mem- 
bers have turned them into a delightful suite for 
Ambulance work. 

There is a kitchen, where several members cook 
meals for non-combatant men, such as R.A.M.C. 
orderlies, who are sent down to the station on 
various kinds of work, and may have to spend 
many hours there. The dispensary is most beau- 
tifully fitted up with bright dressing tins and one 
or two beds, whilst the store beyond is filled with 
all the necessary foodstuffs used for the wounded 
men. 

Great ingenuity has been used by these mem- 
bers in making the best of everything. One of 
them, who is a clever carpenter, has evolved a most 
useful truck for the carrying of supplies along the 
platform for the trains ; whilst several other mem- 
bers have learnt the art of soldering, and con- 
stantly turn condensed milk tins into admirable 
mugs. 



174 BRITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

The V.A.D. members who come out from Eng- 
land are very often put into this Rest Station for 
a week or two to obtain a short training for what- 
ever kind of work they may eventually have to do 
in France. 

The Rest Station is never closed night or day, 
some of the members always being on duty; and 
it is very often in the night hours that the biggest 
rushes occur. Numbers may not be given, but ab- 
solutely thousands of dressings have been carried 
out here (under the direction of M.O. and trained 
nurse), and tens of thousands of wounded men 
have been fed. 

The Opening of More Rest Stations. 

The Military authorities expressed themselves 
as being exceedingly pleased with the work that 
had been done at the Boulogne Rest Station, and 
they requested that other Stations should be 
opened on the Lines of Communication. 

In England comparatively few people seem to 
understand what these Lines mean, but in Prance 
everybody realises that the *'L. of C." are some- 
thing of great Military importance. They are, 
in fact, the railway lines which run from the Bases 
to the Front. 

There are at the present moment several of 
these Rest Stations (or Aid Posts, as they are 
sometimes called) in full working order at various 
spots on the Lines. The members who work at 




Lady District Officer. Com- 
mandant of a V,A.D. has the 
same uniform, except the belt is 
white instead of black. 



BEST STATIONS IN FRANCE 175 

eaeli one form a complete Unit with a Comman- 
dant in charge. 

In many ways the work at these Rest Stations 
is more akin to that which the Army nurses ex- 
perience at a Casualty Clearing Hospital close 
behind the firing line than anything else. How- 
ever hard the work may be at a Hospital at 
or near a Base, the staff usually has all 
necessary utensils supplied to it, and a certain 
amount of personal comfort is provided for 
them. 

The members at a Rest Station have to live 
somewhere near their work, going to and from 
the Station at all hours of the day and night. A 
railway station is likely to be an extremely 
draughty, cold and damp place during the winter 
months, and the members have to contend with a 
great deal of dirt coming from the railway en- 
gines. 

At a very large railway junction in France the 
second Rest Station was established by a devoted 
little party of V.A.D. workers. The four V.A.D. 
members and four orderlies were shown a goods 
shed and told that that was to be their Headquar- 
ters. It was a dreary-looking place, extremely 
dirty, and part of it was cut off from another shed 
by a drooping canvas curtain. 

The Commandant-in-charge, a most excellent 
worker, who has since been honoured by being 
Mentioned in Despatches, set to work, and in a 



176 BEITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEEES 

very few hours the place was tidy and suitable for 
the reception of wounded men. 

There were a certain number of Sawyer stoves 
close by, where tea or cocoa could be made for the 
supply of the men in the improvised Ambulance 
trains, and all the cases that could walk came into 
the Ambulance room for re-dressing by the trained 
Sister. 

Smart WorJc. 

There was something almost occult about the 
premonition which assailed the Commandant one 
chilly evening when she refused to go home and 
leave her Second-in-command in charge for the 
night. She said she felt sure that ** something 
was going to happen." They waited until the 
early hours of the morning, and things were still 
absolutely peaceful, so that she began to think her 
premonition was all nonsense. 

Suddenly there came a message that three im- 
provised Ambulance trains would be coming into 
the station in a couple of hours, but that a change 
of traffic arrangements had necessitated their 
being sent in on a line far away from the Rest 
Station room. This particular railway station is 
a huge one, resembling Waterloo or Victoria, and 
it would be quite impossible to carry food and 
drink across all the lines to the train. 

There was only one thing to be done. The en- 
tire Rest Station must be shifted. History does 



REST STATIONS IN FEANCE 177 

not record what the orderlies or the juniors of 
the Unit thought when the Commandant calmly 
announced her intention that the Aid Post, root 
and branch, must be transplanted to the other 
side of the station. But this is where discipline 
comes in triumphantly. There was not a murmur 
of dissent, but, on the other hand, a glad acquies- 
cence. 

There is something peculiarly exhilarating in 
taking part in a quick change. The railway au- 
thorities gave them the use of a large shed which 
stood at siding close to the line where the trains 
would come in. Luckily it was in a fairly 
clean condition, and with an extra run round 
with a brush and pail of water it was quite 
habitable. 

All the equipment, which had been improvised 
out of biscuit tins, kerosene tins, barrels and 
boxes of every shape and kind, was put on to lor- 
ries and trundled across the lines. Tables and 
benches were set up in position, and ration box 
cupboards were placed against the walls of the 
shed. The orderlies managed to move the Saw- 
yer stoves and to get them alight, and within a 
couple of hours no one could have guessed that the 
Aid Post had not existed in that particular spot 
for the last year or so. 

It was a magnificent piece of generalship, wor- 
thy of the highest military ability. The railway 
authorities were candidly amazed at what had 



178 BEITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

been done, for it seemed little less than miracu- 
lous. 

When the three improvised Ambulance trains 
steamed into the station, one after the other, the 
little Unit of V.A.D. workers, looking calm and 
dainty in their clean uniforms, was ready to serve 
out steaming cocoa and food to the men and, under 
the supervision of trained nurses, to help with 
some hundreds of dressings. 

It was an achievement that should go down in 
the annals of the history of V.A.D. work, typical 
of many other instances of the same kind which 
cannot be mentioned here, but showing that women 
can rise to an emergency and acquit themselves 
creditably. 

It was at this Eest Station that the members 
had cleverly made old kerosene cans into dirty 
dressing utensils. They had cut lids out of wood, 
putting rope handles on to them, and fitting them 
to a nicety. Biscuit tins had been sterilized and 
brightened into the likeness of mirrors, and large 
bottles had been obtained for the contents of va- 
rious lotions. 

Everything was beautifully marked in plain red 
lettering, and the exquisite tidiness of the place, 
the whiteness of the boards, the artistic charm of 
big bowls filled with flowers, gave one a sense of 
rest and welcome. 

It was discovered that the Sisters on the regu- 
lar Ambulance trains experienced great difficulty 



EEST STATIONS IN FRANCE 179 

in getting their linen washed and returned to them, 
as they never knew whether their trains would 
stop for more than an hour at a time. 

The Unit at this big Rest Station, knowing that 
every Ambulance train halted there on every one 
of its journeys, offered to take in the soiled linen 
of the Sisters, get it washed and counted, and 
made into parcels ready for them on their return 
journey. 

This has been a bigger work than would appear, 
and the proportionate amount of comfort it has 
brought to the hard-worked Sisters is extraor- 
dinary; for life on an Ambulance train is more 
exciting than' comfortable, and it is no small mat- 
ter to have the added discomfort of not being able 
to get clean linen. 

Another outside job which is undertaken by the 
Unit is the keeping of a library of books, which 
are lent to the numbers of Tommies who are sta- 
tioned round about the junction. In their spare 
time, of course, the girls make bandages and swabs 
for the neighboring Hospitals; and tobacco and 
cigarettes are kept for the supply of soldiers and 
sailors. 

A Tiny Unit in an Out-of-the-Way Spot. 

Another of these rest stations was established 
on an important junction of railway lines, but in 
a very out-of-the-way French village, where there 
was only one tiny epicerie and one little hotel. 



180 BEITAIN^S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

The Unit that was put here was a particularly 
small one, there being only the Commandant and 
one junior, with four orderlies. 

The doctor attached to the station had a very 
long round and could not be there constantly ; and 
a trained Sister was only sent down during the 
big rushes ; for these highly skilled women are far 
too valuable to be employed at places where they 
may have many weeks of slack times so far as 
wounded are concerned. 

In these cases the Commandant who is put in 
is a woman of experience, who, though not fully 
trained in the sense of having had three years' 
consecutive Hospital training, has spent a great 
deal of time actually in Hospital work, and is 
thoroughly capable of dealing with accidents. 

Many of the older and more experienced mem- 
bers are quite equal, so the doctors say, to nurses 
who have had at least a two years' training, and 
it is these women who are put into the important 
posts where they have a good deal of responsibil- 
ity on their shoulders. 

The raw V.A.D., who has taken her certificates 
since the war began, is excellent as a worker under 
close supervision; but it would be well if people 
did not run away with the idea that because a 
woman is a member of a V.A.D. Detachment she 
must be very much an amateur in the matter of 
nursing. 

I am simply pointing this out so that people 



BEST STATIONS IN FRANCE 181 

may not imagine for one moment that our 
wounded men are ever left in the hands of un- 
skilled people, for that is never the case. The 
Military authorities inspect the Rest Stations con- 
stantly and ask the Commandants all sorts of 
searching questions. 

On a beautiful summer afternoon the Com- 
mandant of one of the Rest Stations had allowed 
her junior and some of her orderlies to be off duty 
for an hour or two, and she herself was calmly 
writing letters home, when an important man of 
high rank in military circles suddenly walked into 
the Rest Station and made a close examination of 
everything there. He opened cupboards, he looked 
into dressing tins, he enquired closely into the 
commissariat arrangements, and he asked a hun- 
dred questions as to what would be done if certain 
circumstances arose. 

** Suppose you had an air raid here," he said; 
*'what arrangements have you made for dealing 
with the wounded? You have only one bed here." 

*'I have arranged," said the Commandant, **to 
have the use of an Army store opposite the sta- 
tion, and I can count on from thirty to forty mat- 
tresses which could be put into the store within a 
few minutes. We have hundreds of dressings 
ready cut up, and stores of lotions. We have 
plenty of candles handy if there should be 
no other light. We have tried to think out a 
plan that would cope with every emergency." 



182 BEITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEEES 

*^ Suppose, on the other hand," said the genial 
Army Inspector, **that, instead of having one or 
two improvised Ambulance trains, there arrived 
twice or three times as many. "What would you 
do for food for them!" 

**We have' arranged with the Army Service 
Supply Unit," was the prompt reply. **We can- 
not store the food here, but it is all ready across 
the road, and the men know that we might need 
it at any moment of the day or night." 

That is the kind of incident that is constantly 
happening, and I quote the little scene about which 
I was told in order to show what a close eye the 
Army keeps upon these voluntary workers. 

Johs, 

V.A.D. members are fond of taking on and car- 
rying out all sorts of jobs which do not strictly 
belong to Red Cross work. They have to remem- 
ber the laws of the Geneva Convention, and do not 
do any work for combatants in their duty time, 
nor spend any Eed Cross funds upon them; but 
there is nothing to prevent a V.A.D. member from 
spending her leisure time in holding out a kindly 
hand to the men who are making such a magnifi- 
cent fight for King and country. 

For instance, it was found at one of the Eest 
Stations that the men on a troop train which went 
through there every evening were very often 
parched with thirst during the hot nights. Hence- 



EEST STATIONS IN FEANCE 183 

forward cans of cold water were placed at inter- 
vals all along the platform, and V.A.D. members 
gave drinks to the men or filled their waiter- 
bottles. 

As the autumn came on and the nights grew 
chilly the cold water was exchanged for boiling 
water, and the dry tea carried by the men was 
turned into a hot drink, to their great delight. 

Picture for yourselves a long troop train in the 
station on a pitch-dark night with rain falling 
fast, or a clear, crisp night with several inches of 
snow lying upon the platform. The men, with 
their heads encased in the woollen helmets which 
they love, hang in little clusters out of the windows 
of the train, and directly they catch the words, 
*^ Boiling water, boiling water," shouted by an 
orderly, fumble for their canteens, throw in a 
handful of tea, and eagerly hold the can out for 
one of the Red Cross workers to fill it with boiling 
water. 

It is not only the hot drink that cheers them on, 
but it is the thought and the kindliness and the 
cheery word which gives these men, who are then 
getting very near to the firing line, a last glimpse 
of English womanhood, and of the love which lies 
in the hearts of all true women for their dear 
fighting men. 

Many a time a train filled with Indian troops 
has halted at this station, and the Indians have 
gladly accepted cold water, in spite of their old 



184 BRITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

traditions, from the English nurses; and then, 
seizing their hands to shake, have said in their 
broken English, **I fight for the King." 

A Tiny Canteen. 

Another of the odd jobs was the running of a 
canteen at one of these Rest Stations for the Brit- 
ish Tommies stationed there. This again they 
had to do quite unofficially. 

It is mentioned, however, to show that V.A.D. 
workers are not like the traditional servant who 
says, **I was not engaged to do so and so." Theirs 
is precisely the opposite point of view. 

They go out first of all to attend to the sick and 
the wounded, but directly they are not occupied 
in this direction they look around and see what 
else there is to be done, and they do it with all 
their heart and with all their soul. 

A little shed was set up in a waste strip of 
ground close to the station, and was equipped 
with tables and benches, stoves and cooking uten- 
sils ; and the girls used to take it in turns to get 
up early in the morning and go down to make 
the men a comfortable breakfast, men who had 
been travelling all night with wounded horses and 
were greatly in need of a little kindly care. 

It was pathetic to see how these men appre- 
ciated having a talk with an English woman, and 
perhaps it is not too much to say that the women 
who minister to the minds of the men who are 



EEST STATIONS IN FEANCE 185 

cut off from their homes and from their own 
women folk are not doing a less ^^ great'' job than 
when they are attending to the men who have been 
broken in battle. 

No one who has not lived on the Lines of Com- 
munication can quite understand the loneliness 
of our men who are stationed there. A French 
village offers but little entertainment save by its 
cafes. Occasionally there comes a Lena Ashwell 
concert party, and there is exceeding joy, for the 
pleasure which these parties have brought into 
the lives of the men behind the lines cannot be 
measured in words. That, however, is a rare 
occurrence, especially for the men who are sta- 
tioned in a tiny village where there are no big 
camps. 

It is impossible to give any idea of the queer 
tasks which the large-hearted V.A.D. members un- 
dertake in these Outposts. They do the mending 
for the men; in one case they do the soldering 
for the little Hospital near by. They are the re- 
cipients of all sorts of sad stories, and they help 
to pull many a man out of a scrape. In some 
cases they manage small recreation huts for the 
men. 

**You are as good as a mother to us," said a 
lad who had come from a good home, but had 
fallen amongst evil companions, and was rapidly 
dropping into bad ways when he was suddenly 
brought back to his original level by the kindly 



186 BRITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

interest shown in him by a V.A.D. member who 
was on the wrong side of thirty. 

A private, crouching miserably against the wall 
of the station on a wild, wet night in winter, was 
approached by a V.A.D. member. He told her 
quite frankly that he was a prisoner, and was 
returning after having undergone twenty-eight 
days ' field punishment. His guard, knowing that 
the man was too cowed to try and escape, and 
having money in his pocket, had gaily gone up the 
village street to the estaminet to get a drink ; but 
the wretched prisoner had not a sou in the world, 
and had somehow missed the rations which should 
have been given to him. 

He was taken into the warm, lamp-lit room and 
given a good square meal. The hot tea put new 
life into him, and gradually the food began to 
make him something of a man and less of a cow- 
ard. He told his story to the nurses, and vowed 
that he would never run the risk of getting such 
a punishment again. 

He still had a long journey to go that night be- 
fore he got back to his own camp, and it was some 
time before his guard returned to look after him. 

These are the things that a woman may do by 
the dozen when she has the proud privilege of 
working on the L. of C. in France. Such stories 
could be multiplied by the hundred, but this one 
only is given so that some sort of glimpse may 
be gained of the extra work, as it were, which 



BEST STATIONS IN FRANCE 187 

is being faithfully carried out, and which is sel- 
dom spoken of by V.A.D. members. 

First Aid in a Hurry, 

At all the Eest Stations injuries are constantly 
attended to for the soldiers of the Allied Armies ; 
for wherever great numbers of troops are travel- 
ling by train there naturally must occur all sorts 
of accidents. 

** First Aid in a hurry," it was called by one 
Commandant, who devised an emergency basket 
in which she kept every kind of dressing and all 
necessary utensils. 

A troop train would be standing in the station, 
when perhaps the door of the Ambulance room 
would jfly open and someone would announce in 
French or English that there was an accident on 
the train. The basket would be caught up in 
one hand, and a kettle of boiling water in the 
other, and within one minute the nurse would be 
in the railway carriage attending to the injured 
man. 

Very often it was only a minor accident which 
might easily develop into a serious injury if left 
uncovered, and in that case it was dressed, and 
as the train was signalled to go the nurse would 
leap out on to the platform and smile her good- 
byes to her patient and his comrades. 

On the other hand, if a man were seriously hurt 
he would be brought into the Ambulance room and 



188 BRITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

put upon the bed and kept there until he had been 
seen by the Medical Officer, who would send him 
down to the Base on an Ambulance. Very often 
patients are kept all night in these Rest Stations, 
men who are taken off the troop trains suffering 
from illness or from accident. Soldiers of the 
Allied Armies, of course, are attended to equally 
with our own. 

A curious thing happened one night in a Rest 
Station when a British soldier was brought in 
by the Medical Officer from a train, who said that 
the man was suffering from a broken leg. Within 
five minutes a French soldier was brought in also 
with a broken leg ! The French and Flemish sol- 
diers have First Aid rendered and are then dis- 
patched to their own Military Hospitals. 

The one predominant feature of Rest Station 
work is the necessity of being ready instanta- 
neously for anything that may happen. The door 
is flung open and a man is brought in suffering 
from a cut on the scalp caused by the falling of 
a rifle from the rack. It is only a superficial 
wound, but it must be dressed. The train can only 
remain in the station five minutes, and the man 
must go on with it when it leaves. 

There is no bustle, but the hair is cut away 
carefully from the neighborhood of the wound, 
which is thoroughly washed and bound up. The 
man is escorted back to his carriage by an orderly, 
well within the five minutes. 



BEST STATIONS IN FRANCE 189 

A young officer, who had been on Salisbury Plain 
during the hot weather, and had not taken any 
notice of the fact that his eyes had become in- 
flamed with the dust, went out to France, and at 
Havre managed to get more grit into his eyes 
during a gust of wind. On his way up in the 
train to the Front a M.O. noticed the condition of 
his eyes, and having done the journey several 
times before, was well aware of the fact that these 
Eest Stations existed en route. 

At the next one he took the young officer with 
him to the Ambulance room and asked for the 
ophthalmic case which is in every Army Field 
Pannier. There was no spare time, as the 
train might go on at any moment. The V.A.D. 
member produced the ophthalmic case instan- 
taneously, and the M.O. put a certain drug, which 
would reduce the inflammation, into the officer's 
eyes. 

It had to be done by the light of a lamp, and 
it was not an easy operation to do under such 
hurried circumstances; but it was done success- 
fully, and at the moment the train began to move 
the M.O. and the officer sprang into their carriage. 

That is the everyday life of the members who 
are stationed at an Aid Post; but the routine is 
roughly broken into by the work for which they 
were placed there — the attending to wounded men 
who come down in the improvised Ambulance 
trains. 



190 BEIT AIM'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEEES 

A Big Push and Its WorJc, 

Wlien there is a big push on the members work 
day and night. Thousands of gallons of cocoa 
are made; hundreds of loaves of bread are cut 
up, and jugs upon jugs full of beef essence or a 
milky drink are distributed, whilst wounds are re- 
dressed by the hundred. 

At one of the Eest Stations it was found that 
the improvised Ambulance trains always came in 
at a platform which was several lines away from 
the Ambulance room. The row of Sawyer stoves 
had been set upon the platform where the trains 
rested, but everything else had to be carried across 
from the room, and this always had to be done 
in plenty of time to avoid the possibility of there 
being goods trains on the lines between the room 
and the ' ' cocoa platform, ' ' as it came to be called. 

A complete set of bottles containing lotions was 
made and kept in a box, whilst certain biscuit 
tins, sterilized and filled with dressings, were kept 
untouched, ready for the arrival of a train. 
Chairs, tables, lamps, mackintoshes, a small ster- 
ilizer, cans of boiling water, basins, washing ma- 
terials and all the other paraphernalia of a dress- 
ing station used to be carried across the lines to 
the glass shelter, where they were set up in or- 
derly array. 

Everything was kept closely covered, and when 
it came to the moment for the men to have their 




Nursing Sister's and V.A.D. 
member's indoor dress. 



EEST STATIONS IN FEANCE 191 

wounds dressed everything possible was done to 
keep them sterile, and of course only wounds that 
were urgently needing re-dressing were actually 
undone. Everything was done by the order of 
the Medical Officer on the train. 

The serving out of the cocoa and food was sys- 
tematized, so that the thousand-odd men each re- 
ceived his quantum in due course, there being left 
no loophole by which a man might be missed over. 
Eighty gallons of cocoa were made for each train- 
load of wounded men; and when it is remembered 
that on one occasion only half an hour's notice 
of the coming of a train was given to the Unit, and 
yet that every man had his hot drink when he ar- 
rived, perhaps it is not too much to say that the 
Rest Station workers have not been altogether a 
failure. 

Of the courage of the men who come down in 
these improvised trains one would like to say just 
a word, since the people in England, sympathetic 
though they are, can have no real conception of 
what things are like out in France. 

It is no unusual sight to see mud-stains up to 
the men's waists, or to have a man come into 
one's hands for the dressing of a wound without 
a whole garment upon him. When the men have 
been through barbed wire they come down liter- 
ally with their clothes torn off them; and it has 
been known for a V.A.D. member, whilst pinning 
the renmants together with safety pins, to ask 



192 BRITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

which particular article of attire it was she was 
handling. 

Optimistic, courageous under their sufferings, 
unselfish in the extreme, the men are never heard 
to grumble at their hard lot, but will always try 
to induce the nurse to * * Oh, do him. Sister ; he is 
worse than I am." 

Their gratitude is out of all proportion to the 
service rendered. Many a time a V.A.D. member 
has had to choke back her tears when words of 
thankfulness have been brokenly uttered by the 
wounded men. In reply she would say, **It is 
nothing to what you have done for us. If you 
had not put up such a fine fight we should have 
been in the same position as the poor women are 
to-day in Lille and the Belgian towns." 

It is difficult to leave the subject of Rest Sta- 
tion work, for there is a great deal to be said 
about it. It has a fascination all its own, because 
it does not run on the regular lines laid down by 
Hospital work. It leaves many an opening for 
the woman who has imagination and ingenuity 
and capacity. It gives her an opportunity of 
using her hands and her brain. The woman who 
can do a bit of amateur carpentering and uphol- 
stering is as invaluable at a Rest Station as the 
one who can play an accompaniment at sight or 
by ear, or can turn her hand to laundry work or 
cooking. 

Officers as well as men very often are attended 



REST STATIONS IN FEANCE 193 

to at Rest Stations, for it frequently happens that 
they suffer minor injuries or become ill whilst 
on the long journeys in Prance, and then it is that 
they turn thankfully to the bare Station rooms 
which have been touched into homeliness by the 
women of their own country. 

There are many sides to the life of a Rest Sta- 
tion, and it is as well that most of the people who 
are connected with them seem to have an abundant 
sense of humor. They are brought so much up 
against the tragedies of war that life would be 
well-nigh impossible if they did not get some relief. 

At one of the Rest Stations it happened that 
an officer, who had had to get down from his train, 
was horrified to see it on the move, and in trying 
to catch it slipped from the footboard and fell 
into a huge heap of soot. It probably saved his 
life, but the soot was of such an affectionate na- 
ture that it effectually hid his identity, and when 
he was picked up in a semi-conscious condition 
and carried into the Rest Station in the gloom of 
night it was thought that he belonged to the col- 
oured race. 

He had suffered a slight scalp wound, which 
was attended to immediately, and his clothes were 
so completely smothered with the soot that they 
were gingerly removed by an orderly and taken 
away, who folded them together without disturb- 
ing them, so as to prevent the smuts from flying 



194 BRITAIN ^S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

Imagine the astonishment of the nurses when 
they came to wash the man's face and hands and 
found that he was white ! They were still, how- 
ever, under the impression that he was a Tommy, 
and were not a little dismayed when the orderly 
came in the morning and said that he had been 
cleaning the clothes and had discovered that the 
patient was an officer. 

It seems that after he had regained conscious- 
ness he heard somebody say that they thought he 
was a coloured man, and he was so indignant that 
he made up his mind not to speak. It is possible 
that his temper was not improved by being treated 
as a Tommy by the orderly ! 

In the morning, however, he had regained his 
sense of humour and laughed heartily at the whole 
thing. He was very grateful for the attention 
he had received and never failed to call upon the 
members when he happened to be passing through 
that particular Station. 

It is impossible to give any adequate notion of 
the widely different bits of work that are under- 
taken by Rest Station members. They hold out 
a helping hand at the crucial moment, and the only 
unsatisfactory part of the work is that they sel- 
dom hear the end of the story. 

Occasionally news comes to them, as in the case 
of a man who was very terribly injured in a train 
accident, and whose life was saved by the prompt 
seizing of the arteries by a V.A.D. member. He 



EEST STATIONS IN FRANCE 195 

had to be taken down to the Base, and she says 
she will never forget the journey of thirty-odd 
miles over terribly bad roads ; but he was got to 
the Hospital in fairly good condition, an opera- 
tion was performed, and later on they heard that 
the man had been sent to England minus a hand, 
but otherwise perfectly well. 

Perhaps a young officer who had some sort of 
help from a Rest Station put the thing into a nut- 
shell when he quoted, 

" Ships that pass in the night, speak one another in passing, 
Only a signal shown — a distant voice in the darkness; 
So on the Ocean of Life, we speak and pass one another, 
Only a voice and a look, then darkness again and a silence." 

It may be only a word or a cup of cold water, 
or it may be the saving of a life by skilled atten- 
tion; but the loftiest ideals of V.A.D. work can 
be reached up to at any one of the Aid Posts, 
where the conditions of life are hard, where the 
members often live on Army rations and become 
veritably a bit of the Army, where they plod 
through snow and mud far up the '* permanent 
way,'' taking big risks of getting caught by a 
train in the darkness of the night; but theirs is 
the privilege, the high honour of being allowed to 
follow in the footsteps of the ancient Kjiights of 
St. John, who took unto themselves the fine old 
Latin motto, ^^Pro utilitate hominum: 



ff 



CHAPTER XVII 

Detention Hospitals in France. 

ABIT of V.A.D. work which is very little 
known of by the general public is that 
which is admirably carried on in the small Deten- 
tion Hospitals that lie behind the Lines of Com- 
munication. Civilians seem to have no under- 
standing of how war is engineered from the back. 
They apparently often forget that the man in the 
firing line has to be fed and clothed and mounted 
by comrades who are gathered together in great 
camps between the Front and the ports. 

It is a hard, dull life that is lived by these men, 
who are put down in out-of-the-way country dis- 
tricts, sometimes far from any town, where they 
have to contend with oceans of mud and all sorts 
of depressing conditions. 

During this last winter, at one of the big camps, 
they have actually had to have boats out to get 
over the floods. That one remark conveys a whole 
history of miseries and discomforts to those who 
have lived amongst the men who work in these 
camps. Yet they are cheery and bright, though 
many of them may be heard to regret that they 
have been put behind the lines instead of up in 
the trenches. 

196 



DETENTION HOSPITALS 197 

Naturally sickness sometimes comes upon these 
men, and as they are all horse camps of one kind 
or another, there are very often accidents and in- 
juries which necessitate skilled attention. It is 
for this purpose that the Detention Hospitals have 
been established. They are not intended for the 
wounded from the firing line. 

At the moment of writing there are two of these 
Hospitals, one of them being run by a B.E.C.S. 
Unit and the other by a St. John Unit. In both 
cases commodious French villas were leased in 
small towns which were near several very large 
camps. The Hospitals thus serve some thousands 
of men, and are truly looked upon as havens of 
rest and joy. 

Many elderly men are accepted for service in 
these camps, and during very wet weather they 
are apt to suffer from rheumatism or from bron- 
chial troubles. Then there are accident cases and 
all sorts of minor ailments. The men may only 
be kept in these small Hospitals for a certain time, 
and if they are not recovered by then they are 
sent down to a Military Base Hospital. 

The entire work of the Hospital is carried out 
by V.A.D. members. A Commandant is in charge 
of the staff and the housekeeping and general 
management of the Hospital, whilst there is a 
fully trained Sister in charge of the nursing mem- 
bers and the wards. 



198 BRITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

Converting a French Villa into a Hospital, 

Difficulties of all sorts confronted the devoted 
little band of workers who descended npon a cer- 
tain small French town not many months after the 
war had commenced. They had travelled for 
many miles in a motor lorry, and when they were 
deposited at the French villa they must have been 
somewhat dismayed to find it in a very filthy con- 
dition, but with a patient actually waiting on the 
doorstep for admission. 

An Army doctor is attached to each Hospital, 
and in this case he gallantly turned to and helped 
the women members and orderlies to get the Hos- 
pital ship-shape. The patient was admitted at 
once, and within a few hours the wards were clean 
and straight and some sort of food had been served 
to everyone. 

But imagine the scene which met the eye of the 
V.A.D. cook when she went into the kitchen at six 
o'clock the next morning. The place was dirty 
in the extreme, and there was no water to be got 
except by sending for it from the town pump. 
Everything was in the last stage of muddle and 
the stove refused to work. 

Perhaps it is as well that history recordeth not 
what she said to herself at that moment, but be 
it to her credit that whatever her feelings were 
she kept them to herself and bravely set to work 
and evolved method out of muddle. 



DETENTION HOSPITALS 199 

The tiny kitchen to-day is a model of neatness, 
with a nail for everything and everything on its 
nail. The same cook has toiled there day after 
day, year in and year out, and certainly has 
earned some special distinction, for she has cooked 
for the patients and for the staff and for the two 
chauffeurs, who come in and out at all times of 
the day, and yet always find a good hot meal await- 
ing them. 

Many of the rooms in the house were repapered 
and whitewashed by the staff, and all sorts of 
clever contrivances have been put up to make the 
house, which must have been an exceedingly pic- 
turesque residence, into a fairly convenient Hos- 
pital. 

Vegetables are grown in the little garden, and 
the niany outhouses, in which the French people 
seem to rejoice, have been turned into a Pack- 
store, a vegetable store, an isolation ward and 
an extra recreation room for the convalescent 
men. 

One of the V.A.D. members acts as housemaid, 
whilst the others are at work in the wards. It is 
a wonderfully happy little community of workers, 
who take the trials and the sudden emergencies 
which come along as part of the daily routine, in 
philosophical fashion. 

At Christmas time wonderful parties are held 
for the patients, and it is odd how many men dis- 
cover that they are suffering from some sort of 



200 BRITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEEES 

illness just at that particular moment and thereby 
are welcomed to the Christmas festivities. 

An Overflow of Patients, 

In the middle of a winter night the Commandant 
of the St. John Hospital sprang out of bed in an- 
swer to a violent ringing of the front-door bell. 
As it happened there had been no need to leave 
anyone on night duty, and the entire staff was 
peacefully sleeping when the summons came. Out- 
side there was a motor car, and in it the doctor 
and a patient. 

*^But I have not got an empty bed," cried the 
Commandant in despair. *'What are we to do!" 

^*You must make one," said the doctor calmly, 
as two orderlies brought in the laden stretcher. 
* * This is a very serious accident which happened 
at one of the camps some miles away." 

The solution to the problem was a simple one. 
A mattress was taken off the bed of one of the 
staff and put on the floor for a convalescent pa- 
tient, whilst the seriously injured man was put 
into a bed in a single ward where he would be per- 
fectly quiet. 

The Water Is Cut Off, 

Little trials such as having the water cut off 
from the main with only ^Ye minutes ' notice may 
give the Commandant a nasty shock at first, but 
she becomes accustomed to it in the course of time. 



DETENTION HOSPITALS 201 

It is nothing unusual to go into one of these Hos- 
pitals and see every kind of jug and basin stand- 
ing on a table in the kitchen, filled to the brim and 
covered with papers. It means that the town au- 
thorities have given them short notice that the 
water will be cut off for the next twenty-four 
hours, and every sort of vessel has been pressed 
into service for the storage of water. 

Army Rations. 

Both patients and staff are fed on Army rations, 
and this fact does not add to the joys of the cook, 
for she very often has to wait for the arrival of 
the rations, and then they may not be in the least 
what she had expected. The food is exceedingly 
good and there is plenty of it, but no definite plans 
can be made early in the day as to of what the 
meals shall consist. 



CHAPTER XVni 
Motor V.A.D. Units in France. 

HUNDREDS of strong men were being em- 
ployed as Motor Ambulance drivers in 
France, and as the grip of war took deeper hold 
it became apparent that these men must be re- 
leased for work in the trenches. Many a girl who 
was an expert motor driver had offered her serv- 
ices, but had been refused by the Military authori- 
ties; but when the necessity arose for the men 
drivers to be released it came about that women 
were gladly accepted, and the Joint Committee 
was asked to form two Motor Ambulance Units 
which would work in different districts in France. 

It was one of the many experiments which have 
been tried by the Joint Committee, and it is satis- 
factory to know that scarcely any few of them 
have proved failures. The members of the Unit 
not only drive the Ambulances, but do all the run- 
ning repairs and clean the cars. In some cases a 
girl will drive as many as a hundred and fifty 
miles a day. 

A fine idea of the work is given by the Com- 
mandant in her report: 

'^We are a Convoy of thirty-seven Ambulances, 
one small lorry, and one workshop, with a staff of 

203 



MOTOR V.A.D. UNITS IN FEANCB 203 

forty V.A.D. members, one orderly, four mechan- 
ics, and one man officer, called Transport Officer. 
Our Ambulances deal with stretcher cases chiefly, 
as buses still run for sitting cases ; but we also do 
lots of odd jobs. 

'^We feel that it is a great honour for our girls 
to be allowed to drive at funerals, though it is 
very trying work when the relatives sit on the 
front seat of the Ambulances." 

The girls do all the work on their cars exactly 
as men do, cleaning, oiling and greasing them, 
and changing tires; but they do not do adjust- 
ments, as the men on Convoys are not allowed to 
do that either. Our girls drive very carefully 
and well, and they are exceedingly popular with 
the French people, who are not afraid of their chil- 
dren and dogs being run over by them. 

In a Motor Unit roll call is at 7.30 a.m., at which 
all the girls must be present, even though they 
may have been out driving part of the night. They 
work on their cars, except for an interval for 
breakfast, till 10.30 a.m., when the Commandant 
holds engine inspection. 

The Convoy is divided into two sections, with 
a Section Leader and Sub-Section Leader to each. 
One Section does all the odd driving for the day, 
whilst the other Section provides all the orderlies 
who have to do the cleaning duties in the house. 
The Sections alternate their duties day by day. 
For Convoys or evacuations the whole strength 



204 BRITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

of the Unit is out, with the exception of three 
girls who have to be left to do the orderly work. 

It is not a popular job to be put as assistant to 
one of the three V.A.D. cooks, but it has to be 
done, and as it is taken in turns by the entire Unit 
there is a long space in between the duty for each 
girl. 

The Military authorities have intimated their 
satisfaction at the way the work is being carried 
out, and certainly it is not easy to keep up with 
all the demands. Every now and then little con- 
tretemps occur, such as when the girls oversleep 
themselves and have to jump into oilskins and 
long leather boots and drive off at the very last 
moment. 

The day's routine in a Motor Unit is something 
after this style: A girl gets down at 7.30 and 
goes straight to her car. She has breakfast and 
finishes the cleaning of her engine for the inspec- 
tion of her officer. Her Section Leader then tells 
her to be ready for the next call, and directly the 
whistle goes she mounts and is off. 

On her return she cleans her cubicle, and per- 
haps has to mend a punctured tire, which means 
an hour or more of hard work. She is not allowed 
to leave her car until it is in perfect order for the 
road. 

After lunch she probably goes and plays tennis 
or takes a rest; but she has to ''stand by," for 
an Evacuation may have been ordered at 6 p.m. 



MOTOE V.A.D. UNITS IN FRANCE 205 

By that time she will have blankets in her car, and 
the stretcher racks down with stretchers upon 
them. The cars all line up, and at a given signal 
go off to their destinations. The girls sign on 
and off before and after every journey for Evac- 
uation or Convoy. 

Both the Motor Units are run on the same prin- 
ciple, and every day sees an increase in their work, 
for it is very evident that they fill a much needed 
want and are perfectly equal to any emergency. 

It is a fine arm of V. A.D. work in France, and 
the Commandants are well deserving of high 
praise, to say nothing of the individual members, 
who drive their cars over roads which are not in 
too good a condition, who face all sorts of weather 
conditions, and who very often are called up at 
night and get no chance of making up their hours 
of sleep during the day. 

It is a hard life, but has its many compensa- 
tions, for the woman who really loves her car will 
tell you that there is an all-powerful allurement 
about driving it, and the difficulties of the circum- 
stances add to rather than detract from the fas- 
cination of the work. 

Above and beyond all, these women have the 
satisfaction of knowing that whilst they cannot 
fight themselves, they have actually given men 
to the Army, whilst they themselves are doing the 
merciful work of convoying the wounded and the 
sick. 



CHAPTER XIX 

Hostels in France. 

THE big Hotel at Boulogne, whieli was taken 
over by the Joint Committee as Headquar- 
ters, is entirely staffed by V.A.D. members, who 
cook, sweep, do bouse and parlour work without 
complaint, knowing that they are saving the So- 
cieties hundreds of pounds which may be spent 
on the sick and wounded. 

Self-sacrificing indeed is the work of this little 
army of V.A.D. members, who never come into 
direct contact with any wounded or sick man, but 
who simply cook and clean for the staff who are 
administering the great work of the two Societies 
in France. 

There is a Commandant in charge of the mem- 
bers, and by her economical management she has 
effected a very large saving on the cost of the up- 
keep of Headquarters. The administration of 
huge sums of money such as pass through the 
hands of the Joint Committee of the British Red 
Cross Society and St. John is bound to be very 
heavy ; but a sharp eye is kept on every detail, and 
accounts are closely looked into by those in au- 
thority. 

206 



HOSTELS IN FRANCE 207 

Every Unit has to keep a minute account of its 
expenditure and make a regular return, together 
with a report of the work that has been done. This 
is all condensed and put into a summary which 
is sent round regularly to all the Units, so that 
each one can see exactly what is going on in other 
Units. 

The keeping of these accounts is no small part 
of each Commandant's duty. At first some of 
them are bewildered by having to keep them in 
French money, but they very soon become enam- 
oured of the metric system. 

Hostels for the nursing staff of the Hospitals 
also are run by V.A.D. staffs in several districts, 
and three Hostels for relations of the wounded 
are also staffed in the same way. 

In the Military Hospitals in France V.A.D. 
members are not only to be found in the wards 
as probationers, but they act as orderlies in the 
kitchens and in the linen-rooms, and thus they 
liberate hundreds of healthy men for the firing 
line. 

Nurses' Clubs, 

Three Clubs for nurses have been established 
and are entirely staffed by V.A.D. members, and 
in several cases the gardens also are cared for 
by them. 

In one of the Hospitals, which is very close to 
the Front, the cooks who are in charge of the 



208 BRITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

kitchen have French women working under them, 
and this arrangement seems to be most satisfac- 
tory. In this particular Hospital there is a dug- 
out, in which refuge can be taken during bombard- 
ment or aerial attack. This is mentioned to show 
that many V.A.D. members are risking their lives 
whilst carrying on their unostentatious work. 

**We are quite used to being bombed from en- 
emy aeroplanes," said a V.A.D. nurse who was 
working in an Anglo-Belgian Hospital not far 
from the frontier. **The regularity with which 
the Germans fly over the town and drop bombs is 
astonishing. We are so accustomed to it that we 
scarcely take any notice of it, and, as a matter of 
fact, very little damage has been done by them 
and they have never yet got anything of Military 
importance. They have even reached us with 
their shells from guns, but no one in the town is 
frightened, and we go about our work quite calmly. 
It really is funny how one can get used to any- 
thing." 

So much for the effect of German f rightfulness ! 

Barges as Hospitals. 

Very little has been written about a barge which 
has been converted into a Hospital for the use 
of the civilian population and is moored in a cer- 
tain Belgian canal. A couple of V.A.D. members 
work there, under the supervision of a trained 
Sister. 



HOSTELS IN FRANCE 209 

Confidential Worh, 

In one of the big French towns several V.A.D. 
members are doing confidential work under the 
Military authorities. They are proving them- 
selves to be thoroughly efficient and trustworthy 
in every way. 

At one of the Rest Clubs for nurses the mem- 
bers sleep in tents on the sand-dunes outside the 
Club house, and considering that they have no 
means of transport and have to get all their milk 
and eggs from a village two miles away, it is not 
too much to say that the work is fairly strenuous. 
Winter and summer they have carried out this 
work, which probably demands as much unselfish- 
ness as any other in France. They have created 
a small garden in the sand, which gives a delight- 
ful patch of colour, for in it they grow nastur- 
tiums, mignonette, and heliotrope. 

Joint Committee Post Office. 

It is comparatively a new development for the 
Joint Committee Post Office to be managed by 
a V.A.D. Unit, but it is a venture which has suc- 
ceeded very well indeed. The Office is clean and 
tidy and the members look smart and happy. At- 
tached to the Post Office is a postal van which is 
driven by a V.A.D. member. She generally drives 
about sixty miles a day, delivering letters, news- 
papers, etc., to the various Joint Committee for- 
mations in the district. 



210 BRITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

At the V.A.D. Club for Sisters and Military 
V.A.D. members one worker, who has been in 
charge for many months, has shown great devo- 
tion and unselfishness. Through her work dozens 
of tired nurses off Ambulance trains and out of 
Hospitals have had restful and happy times in 
the Club. 

It has been truly said of V.A.D. members that 
no job is too small for them to undertake, and 
no gap is too large for them to fill. They are per- 
petually adding to their branches of work and 
constantly devising new schemes for the advance 
of their work. 

For example, during the big pushes it happens 
that improvised Ambulance trains come in one 
close upon the heels of the other, and it is exceed- 
ingly difficult, almost impossible at times, to make 
a sufficient quantity of cocoa for the wounded men. 
With characteristic ingenuity, the V.A.D. mem- 
bers have now devised enormous hay boxes, in 
which they keep large cauldrons full of cocoa or 
tea hot for hours during a rush, when they do not 
know whether hundreds or thousands of wounded 
will need food. 

The house members in the Hostels also deserve 
great praise. They cheerfully do the cooking, 
house and pantry work, and many have admitted 
that they will ** understand things better" in their 
own homes in future. Complaints are rare, and 
jthe whole spirit of the V.A.D. members in France 



HOSTELS IN FRANCE 211 

might well be taken as an example to many of the 
girls at home. 

The rules and regulations are very strict, and 
there is but little entertainment. War conditions 
prevail everywhere, and the members show a fine 
sense of honour in obeying the spirit of the law 
rather than the letter. They rise early, work 
hard all day, and they go to bed in cubicles which 
before the war would not have been offered to the 
lowliest of domestic servants. 

Bed Cross Stores. 

The first Red Cross Stores to be established in 
France were opened by Mrs. Clipperton, the wife 
of the Consul-General of Rouen. The necessities 
of the Hospitals in France during the early months 
of the war far exceeded the supplies, and it was 
a heart-rending matter for Mrs. Clipperton to try 
to send consignments of goods that would at all 
meet with the needs. Words cannot express how 
she worked in order to gather together the equip- 
ment which was constantly being demanded by 
Matrons of Hospitals, but by her marvellous en- 
ergy and her wonderful personality she effected 
that which might have seemed to be impossible. 

After a time some very fine premises in a cen- 
tral position in Rouen were put at her disposal, 
and they may well be looked upon as model Red 
Cross Stores. 

Everything is worked on a thoroughly business 



212 BEITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEEES 

basis, and requisitions have to be made out on 
forms by Commandants or Matrons before any- 
thing is allowed to leave the Stores. Eequisitions 
are packed and dispatched with the utmost 
promptitude, a motor lorry being kept for the pur- 
pose of sending the goods to the various Units 
which are situated on the outskirts of the district 
served by the Eouen Eed Cross Stores. 

Here again we must speak of the Stores as being 
typical of many others which exist, but as they 
were the first to be got into working order, it is 
only just to describe them rather than any others. 

How Mr. Clipperton manages to spare time from 
his heavy official duties is always a marvel to 
those who know him; but his heart and soul are 
in Eed Cross work, and he has never yet been 
known not to fulfil a demand that has been made 
upon him when it sprang out of the needs of our 
wounded. 

Stores there are of every sort of article that 
can possibly be wanted in Eed Cross work, and 
they are methodically arranged on shelves all 
round the big rooms over which Mrs. Clipperton 
presides. From china and enamel plates, cups, 
pots and pans, the eye is carried along to piles of 
under-garments, fascinating groups of invalid 
foods, and all kinds of household equipment. Ta- 
bles and chairs even can be supplied by Mrs. Clip- 
perton at very short notice, and when a big cup- 
board was begged for by the Commandant of a 



HOSTELS IN FEANCE 213 

Eest Station, who did not know what to do with 
the bandages she had to store for the big rush, a 
huge packing case was quickly converted into a 
cupboard, well finished, even to having a lock and 
key on it, and was dispatched at very short notice. 

Mrs. Clipperton keeps a close eye on various 
branches of work outside the actual Stores. 
When the two little Detention Hospitals were first 
started she gave invaluable assistance in deciding 
what furniture should be put in and helped in 
making the curtains. When the Hostel was 
started for the accommodation of the relatives of 
wounded in Rouen the entire- furnishing of the 
house fell to the lot of Mrs. Clipperton, who had 
a little band of V.A.D. members under her. The 
whole thing was done with great rapidity, and the 
house is quite charming and makes a comfortable 
refuge for the weary and sad people who come 
to see their stricken loved ones. 

That is only one instance of many in which Mrs. 
Clipperton has been the moving spirit in starting 
Red Cross establishments, and latterly she had 
added to her own work by giving a helping hand 
to the Canadian Red Cross Organisation which is 
in Rouen. 

As time goes on the work at her own Red Cross 
Stores grows heavier, but the system on which she 
works is admirable and everything goes smoothly. 
Only the Commandant of any Unit which is out in 
France can quite realise the help which is given 



214 BRITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEEKS 

to her by Mr. and Mrs. Clipperton's ready assist- 
ance and kindly, genial interest. 

The Discretion of V.A,D, Members, 

The Military authorities have long since real- 
ised that women can be trusted in the zone of the 
Armies; that they understand discipline and ap- 
preciate the necessity of discretion. 

**Do you know to what place General Headquar- 
ters have been moved?" someone recently asked a 
V.A.D. member, lately returned from France. 

**Yes, I know," she admitted. 

**Then tell me," he begged. **I have a special 
reason for wanting to know." 

* * I cannot do that, ' ' said she staunchly. ' * I only 
got to know in the course of my work, and we 
never speak of Military matters." 

That is the general aspect of the V.A.D. mem- 
ber. She can keep a secret, and has as high a 
sense of honour as her brother who is in the Army. 
The war, pitiful and horrible and costly in human 
life as it has been, has done a great deal for the 
manhood of the country, but perhaps it has done 
even more for its womanhood. 



CHAPTER XX 
V.A.D. Work in Feench Hospitai.s. 

A LARGE number of English men and women 
have given their services ever since the 
commencement of the war in aid of French pa- 
tients, and their labours have been intensely ap- 
preciated by the French nation. 

It is curious that French people, with all their 
fine organisation and educational progress, should 
not have had regular training schools for nurses 
long ago. There are a few fully trained French 
nurses, but so few are they that one seldom meets 
them. 

The three recognised Red Cross French Socie- 
ties have done splendid work among the French 
wounded, and in a few instances the Red Cross 
Detachments were thoroughly well established 
long before the war, and have since shown them- 
selves capable of doing the most excellent work; 
but the French people have been exceedingly 
thankful to accept the offer of assistance from us 
in their Hospitals, and there is no doubt that in 
a very large measure the Entente Cordiale has 
been enormously strengthened by the willing as- 



216 BEITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEEES 

sistance whicli has been given by English men 
and women to sick and wounded French soldiers. 

Hospitals in Monasteries, 

Many of the beautiful and historic Monasteries 
and Chateaux of France have been turned into 
Hospitals, and in not a few of them fully trained 
English nurses are in charge of the wards, some- 
times working entirely under French doctors and 
sometimes under British doctors, and in one case 
at least both French and English doctors work 
amicably together with an English stafE under 
them. 

As I write there rises a picture in my mind's 
eye of a wonderful old Castle situated in a wooded 
part of Seine Inferieur. The two great castel- 
lated towers, built in grim grey stone, stand out 
boldly from the side of a hill, and are joined by 
an ancient wooden drawbridge, which stretches 
across a wide and very deep moat. From the 
drawbridge, up between the two towers, there 
springs a flight of circular steps, and on the slop- 
ing ground at either side there are curious-shaped 
flower beds, ablaze with geraniums and many 
gaudy blossoms. 

The great door was thrown open and we were 
ushered into a long stone corridor, and eventually 
taken through the wards, filled with French sol- 
diers. This was not a Military Hospital, but had 
been equipped and staifed by private endeavour, 





Officer. ■ Ordinary Member. 

Uniforms for Voluntary Aid Workers. 



V.A.D. WOEK IN FEENCH HOSPITALS 217 

and reflected great credit on the organisation of 
the French people who were at the head of it. 

We were shown a very beautiful old painted 
chamber, and various other rooms filled with fine 
old furniture, which were carefully locked from 
general view. 

An Ancient Abbey. 

A fine Abbey not very far from the French fir- 
ing line has been staffed almost entirely from 
the beginning of the war by English people, and 
in the Verdun district there are several big 
French Hospitals entirely run by British men 
and women. 

It is interesting to know that in many cases the 
fully trained Sisters who are working amongst 
the French are Canadians and Australians, so 
that the Entente is spreading its influence far be- 
yond the United Kingdom, and is stretching away 
to the furthest corners of our Greater Dominions. 

Englishmen who are over military age or are 
physically unfit have been working in these Hos- 
pitals from the very beginning, and have proved 
themselves to be invaluable as orderlies. They 
have learned to become expert stretcher-bearers, 
they have driven motor Ambulances many times 
under fire, and they have carried out all the lowly 
work which falls to the lot of the men in a Hos- 
pital ward. 

They labour under conditions much more difii- 



218 BKITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

cult than those which prevail in the English Hos- 
pitals in France, because the sanitation is not as 
good, and the work entailed is extremely heavy 
in consequence. Highly cultured men are labour- 
ing in these Hospitals day and night, and find 
immense satisfaction in being of some assistance 
to the gallant French soldier. 

They all tell the same story about the marvel- 
lous endurance of the Frenchman after he has 
been hit, and I have no difficulty in believing this, 
for I have seen many times for myself the mag- 
nificent courage of French wounded soldiers. If 
they are not as boisterously cheery as our own 
men, they are more philosophical and quite as 
patient. 

Their gratitude is intense, and they are not 
ashamed of showing their emotion. To an Eng- 
lish woman it is embarrassing when a soldier 
seizes her hands, kisses them and cries over them ; 
but she cannot fail to be touched, because it is 
not all mere outward expression, but shows the 
real sentiment and gratitude which lie deep in 
the heart. 

Self -Sacrificing Labour, 

For pure self-sacrifice it would be hard to match 
the action of a young English V.A.D. member, who 
has for months on end worked for the best part 
of the day in a cellar at retrimming lamps. The 
lighting of these French Hospitals is one of the 



V.A.D. WOEK IN FRENCH HOSPITALS 219 

difficulties which has to be faced, and every day 
someone has got to do the not too exhilarating 
task of trimming between one and two hundred 
lamps. 

The cellar is cold and dark, the work is dirty 
and the life is lonely, but this brave young girl 
is dauntless, and laughed merrily when an or- 
derly happened to descend to the cellar and was 
astonished to see her surrounded by a bewilder- 
ing number of lamps. 

We might quote dozens of such examples for 
self-sacrificing unobtrusive work which forms one 
of the cogs in the great wheel of war work. There 
is no glory and no fame, no excitement and cer- 
tainly no sort of comfort in a job of this kind; 
but ** somebody has got to do it; I may as well 
be that somebody as anyone else." A valiant 
spirit, and one which has made English people 
the real friends of France. 

It is no unusual thing for the English people 
working in French Hospitals to be near enough 
to the line to be within range of the shells. One 
English woman, who had worked as a V.A.D. mem- 
ber in the Verdun district, said that they became 
expert in knowing the sound of the shells as they 
passed over their Hospital and fell in a village a 
mile away. They knew from the sound the size 
and the kind of shells that were being thrown. 

The Hospital in which she was working has been 
established in a very beautiful old Chateau, and 



220 BEITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEEES 

it was said that the German artillerymen had been 
specially warned not to injure it because the Kai- 
ser wished to make it a summer residence for one 
of his sons after the war! 

The work in this Hospital was very hard be- 
cause the patients came in direct from the 
trenches; but everything went exceedingly well, 
and the little band of English people seem to have 
been very happy there. 

In the south of Prance a big school has been 
turned into a Hospital with five hundred beds, and 
in it a few English women started work in Janu- 
ary, 1915, gradually adding to their numbers un- 
til there were about a dozen all told. With some 
devoted French women to assist them, two or 
three of them ran a section each of the Hospital 
with about eighty beds under their care. 

The building was quite suitable for a Hospital, 
having very large dormitories and fair-sized class- 
rooms which could be made into good wards. Al- 
though the Hospital was many miles from the 
Front the cases, which of course were not of the 
worst character, arrived in a most pitiable con- 
dition. 

The English V.A.D. members were of various 
grades of experience, some of them being highly 
trained and others with but little knowledge of 
nursing. The orderlies were all untrained, but 
showed great willingness. 

The experienced members felt it was a great re^ 



V.A.D. WORK IN FEENCH HOSPITALS 221 

sponsibility to cope with the convoys of several 
hundreds of patients, hut they always managed 
it excellently. The convoys generally came in at 
night, and in the dimly lit wards it was a hard 
task to get even the poor stumbling, tired stream 
of walking cases washed and comfortably put to 
bed. Each division of the Hospital had its own 
surgery in which all the dressings were done, 
which lightened the work and also made it pos- 
sible for the dressings to be done under the most 
hygienic circumstances. The stretcher cases pre- 
sented a good deal of difficulty in this direction, 
but the V.A.D. members were determined to keep 
everything up to a high standard, and they 
brought not only knowledge but hard work to 
bear on every department of the Hospital. 

One of the V.A.D. members of this Hospital 
summed the feelings of herself and her comrades 
up in a few words when she wrote home : **If work 
is sometimes hard — as during the arrival of con- 
voys, when we often have to do day and night 
shifts — all of us are ready to overcome even worse 
difficulties for the sake of the brave and ever- 
cheerful Poilu." 

British Ambulance Drivers on the French Front. 

A magnificent service has been rendered by 
many Englishmen as Motor Ambulance drivers. 
They have constantly taken their lives in their 
hands, for their work has carried them out almost 



222 BEITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEEES 

to the firing line, and certainly within reach of 
the heavy shells. 

One needs to see as I have done the Motor Am- 
bulances coming in, torn here and there by shraj)- 
nel, to realise in the slightest degree what it must 
mean to run over the fire-swept roads which lead 
from the Hospitals to the Clearing Stations. It 
is a thrilling sight to see a long stream of Am- 
bulances wending its way down a French road, 
bearing its burden of broken manhood. 

In a town which was at that time only fifteen 
miles from the firing line I had the opportunity 
of speaking to an American who had generously 
brought an Ambulance car over from the States 
and ran it out every night to fetch in French 
wounded. He said that there were many English- 
men doing this same kind of work, and by his 
courtesy I was allowed to see the French Casualty 
Clearing Hospital to which he took his patients 
from the firing line. 

The state of his Ambulance car was indescrib- 
able. It is unnecessary to say that it was covered 
with mud; it had been hit in several places by 
shot and shell, and it rocked and swayed ominously 
as we dashed down the crowded way. He said 
that there was nothing vital the matter with it, 
and that it had got plenty of good work in it yet, 
which I did not doubt; but a more war-worn and 
utterly dilapidated vehicle never have I seen. 

These voluntary motor drivers live very often 



y.A.D. WOEK IN FRENCH HOSPITALS 223 

in anything but comfortable quarters. They set 
forth on their daily work late in the afternoon, 
and it is marvellous how they find their way down 
the dark roads, for of course they can carry no 
sort of light with them. When they meet the 
stretcher-bearers their cars are loaded up and they 
turn and dash away as fast as possible. 

Many a thrilling story did I hear that day, and 
they gained not a little in emphasis and point be- 
cause whilst we talked there was the incessant 
boom of the heavy guns, and the frail sides of 
the Goods Shed which had been turned into the 
Casualty Hospital shook and reverberated again 
and again. 

In speaking of the conditions under which these 
English motor drivers live, perhaps we may quote 
the words of Commandant New, the officer in 
charge of the British Ambulance Committee's sec- 
tions working with the French Army: 

**Our Ambulances were quite unfit to sleep in, 
but we had the use of a bam, which had a thor- 
ough system of ventilation on all sides. Various 
odd gipsy-like tents made of old stretcher poles, 
blankets, corrugated iron, canvas and wood were 
put up, but the weather was kind, so no matter. 
We took our food from the usual tin plates and 
cups in the porte-cochere of a farm, amongst 
wagons, accumulated litter, and flies in myriads. 
When the meal is ready a wagon and team may 
demand passage, and everything has to be cleared 



224 BRITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

away. Without warning the order came to move 
up to the front again. This meant another ex- 
hausting day for everyone, from early morn till 
late afternoon. When we reached our new camp- 
ing ground one and all were so coated with dust 
that we were like old men with white hair and 
moustaches. There was no water, so with parch- 
ment-like lips we made our camp on the hillside 
far more bare than the Downs near Brighton. . . . 

**Our Ambulance route runs under the very 

walls of . Picture a large town without a 

single resident left in its miles of streets. Entire 
quarters are nothing but ruins and rubbish heaps, 
though others have escaped. At night not a 
twinkle of light anywhere save, perhaps, that from 
the blue-white star shells overhead or a peep of 
moon. It is eerie and wonderful beyond words. 
Enormous German shells come over frequently. 
You must find your way in pitch darkness down 
narrow alley-ways which have been cleared with 
pick and shovel." 

These Ambulances have to run between the 
French artillery and the firing line, and a clever 
device has been thought out for the safety of the 
cars. At one point on the road there has been 
set up a pole the exact height of an Ambulance, 
carrying a little light on the top at night. This 
gives the batteries the minimum elevation per- 
missible when the road is being used. The guns 
bark incessantly from behind, and the German re- 



V.A.D. WORK IN FRENCH HOSPITALS 225 

plies — ^high explosives — come thick and fast; yet 
the courageous motor drivers dash between with 
their cars calmly and unafraid. 

Commandant New gives us another glimpse of 
the work: ^* Through all this our Ambulances 
stand in the open near the poste de secours, a dug- 
out heavily sand-bagged and cut into the hillside. 
The wounded arrive by scores ; not an instant is 
lost. The car is loaded and passes away into the 
darkness. Will it ever reach safety? Another fol- 
lows and another, hour by hour, until as the dawn 
breaks a thick white fog obscures everything and 
soaks the exhausted men. But the Ambulance has 
to run the gauntlet again all the way. It has a 
groaning load of suffering; the shell holes in the 
road are to be avoided. Few men can keep a 
steady pace when the car is struck and mud and 
stones fly everywhere in the blackness. Still, 
though half-choked with smoke, nothing less is ex- 
pected. At first as you descend the hill it gives 
some shelter, but an absolutely exposed stretch 
follows, and as the road winds about so the chances 
against you vary every fifty yards. In time you 
come to the zone of fewer but larger shells from 
the long-range guns, and further still at last you 
have left the bombardment booming and snapping 
and grumbling behind you entirely, all this time, 
be it remembered, travelling at five miles an hour. 
As one of our cars passed a level crossing a Boche 
shell cut the railway rails through like sticks ; an- 



226 BKITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

other car had a piece of shell through the dash- 
board, front, and roof, and no one hurt ; another 
fragment passed right through from side to side 
between the heads of the men inside, and again 
no harm done; but the same luck cannot always 
be with us." 

That, alas, is true, for not long since several of 
these gallant motor drivers were seriously in- 
jured. The French Government has recognised 
the gallantry of several of the Englishmen who 
have undertaken this particular work for their 
French friends, and have decorated them with the 
Medaille Militaire and with the Croix de Guerre. 



CHAPTER XXI 
Canadian and Ovebseas V.A.D. Woek. 

CANADA has given such magnificent aid in 
sending fighting men to the help of the 
Mother Country, with such superb generosity, that 
it comes as no surprise to hear that the men and 
women who are left at home in the Canadian towns 
have done their utmost to help Red Cross work. 

The ground was already prepared for this as 
there had always been keen interest shown in St. 
John Ambulance work throughout Canada, and 
some years ago, when the King reviewed the St. 
John Ambulance Brigade a great many Canadian 
members came over for the occasion. Many of 
these have actually become V.A.D. members, and 
all of them may well be classed as belonging to 
the movement, since they have given their services 
for Red Cross work ever since the war began. 

The Duke of Connaught, who is the Sovereign 
Grand Prior of the Order of St. John of Jeru- 
salem, became Patron of the Canadian branch, and 
showed an intense interest in all its work. At 
the annual meeting held in Ottawa, His Royal 
Highness said: *^I would like to say that our 
Voluntary Aid Detachments have been found most 

327 



228 BRITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

useful. At the present moment there are three 
or four Convalescent Hospitals almost entirely 
staffed by the Voluntary Aid Detachments. At 
first there was a little difficulty in their recognised 
position, but I am happy to be able to announce 
that the Militia Department have very generously 
and very kindly recognised the position of the 
Voluntary Aid Detachments, and now they form 
a recognised part of our Military Hospital sys- 
tem." 

Voluntary Aid Detachments were organised in 
the city of Halifax and in the city of Quebec, and 
other Detachments have since been formed. 

History of Canadian V,A. Detachments, 

It is interesting to remember that the Militia 
Council (Canada) on November 29th, 1911, ap- 
proved of a scheme for **the organisation of Vol- 
untary Medical Aid in Canada.'' This plan was 
revised in 1914, and as amended was approved 
by the Militia Council on March 3rd of that year. 
Committees were created in each district and they 
were charged with the responsibility of organising 
Voluntary Aid Detachments in connection with 
the Militia. 

It was arranged at a conference of representa- 
tives held at Government House on August 14th, 
1914, with the approval of H.R.H. the Governor 
General, that the duty of organising Voluntary 
Aid Detachments should be given over to the St. 



CANADIAN V.A.D. WOEK 229 

John Ambulance Association. Thns the organisa- 
tion began, the first V.A. Detachment to be formed 
being in Halifax. The second was at Quebec, and 
Montreal and Ottawa quickly followed. 

An enormous number of classes in First Aid 
and Home Nursing have been held all over Canada, 
with the result that thousands of qualified men 
and women are now in a position to form Detach- 
ments throughout the Dominion. 

The First Ottawa Women's V,A,D. 

This was formed in January, 1915, of about 
thirty members and officers. They laid down three 
distinct objects for which the Detachment was 
formed: (1) putting to practical use the knowl- 
edge acquired in First Aid and Home Nursing by 
continual practice in the making of beds, applica- 
tion of bandages, and the preparing of invalid 
diets, etc.; (2) being able in a time of calamity or 
public distress to turn any suitable building into 
an emergency Hospital, and to assist graduate 
nurses in the care of the sick and wounded; (3) 
being able to act as probationers under graduate 
nurses in Convalescent Homes which may be es- 
tablished by the Militia in Ottawa or vicinity. 

Not content with having these objects merely 
set down upon paper, the Detachment approached 
the Public Works Department and asked for the 
use of a good-sized room. This was granted, and 
the public were invited to assist in furnishing the 



230 BEITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEEES 

room, with the result that there grew up in Well- 
ington Street a room with a kitchen and bath- 
room attached, where the members of the Detach- 
ment could practise all the work required in a 
Hospital. 

The Girl Guides volunteered to act as patients, 
and as well as classes in nursing instruction, those 
for the study of the Braille System for the blind 
were held, so that the V.A.D. members could help 
to teach blinded soldiers and sailors to read and 
write. 

In September, members of the Detachment were 
put in charge of a tent at the Central Canada Ex- 
hibition, at which all kinds of First Aid and Home 
Nursing appliances were displayed. 

Useful Work, 

From time to time the members have been able 
to collect fruit, jam, books, etc., for the 77th Bat- 
talion of Engineers in camp on Eock Cliff, and 
five cases of oranges were collected and presented 
to the 38th Battalion on its departure from Ot- 
tawa. The men were exceedingly grateful for 
this, as they had no drinking water on the train. 

A smart bit of work was carried out by the De- 
tachment early in October, when the 8th Canadian 
Mounted Eifles passed through Ottawa from 
Kingston. The V.A.D. members heard that the 
men would be unable to have a meal from the 
time they left Kingston very early in the morning 



CANADIAN V.A.D. WOEK 231 

until after they left Ottawa at 5 p. m. They im- 
mediately made arrangements to have hot soup, 
bread, and fresh fruit at the station, and the ap- 
peal to the public for funds was so generous that 
there was more than sufficient food to supply the 
six hundred and fifty officers and men who were 
fed that day. Three ladies of the Detachment 
supplied the soup, which was made in their own 
homes, and Colonel D. E. Street lent a field kitchen 
belonging to the 77th Battalion. 

The Detachment has grown enormously, and the 
members are all very enthusiastic and anxious to 
help in any way that is possible. 

The late Sir Sanford Fleming's residence on 
Sandyhill has been offered and accepted by the 
Militia Department to be used as a Convalescent 
Home for returned wounded soldiers, and mem- 
bers of the V.A.D. hope to be able to serve in re- 
lays as probationers under graduated nurses who 
will be in charge. 

In the district of Quebec the Voluntary Aid De- 
tachment at Sherbrooke Centre has been doing a 
fine work of mercy in looking after the require- 
ments of sick and wounded soldiers from the Front 
at the Khaki Convalescent Home. 

Canadian Army Medical Corps. 

A very large number of Canadian St. John men 
have volunteered for active service with this corps, 
and are working in Hospitals or right up close to 



232 BEITAIN^S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

the firing line in France or other parts of the Con- 
tinent. 

Working Parties. 

These have been formed in various places in 
Canada and have done magnificent work for the 
Red Cross Society. 

Sixty V.A,D. Canadians at Work in Military Hos- 
pitals, 

During the autumn of 1916 sixty Canadian 
V.A.D. members came to England to give their 
services in Military Hospitals. Ten of these were 
sent on to France to work there in Military Hos- 
pitals and fifty remained in England. They have 
done exceedingly well and certainly reflect credit 
on their organisation. It is too well known a fact 
for it to be necessary to remark on the splendid 
way in which graduate (fully trained) nurses vol- 
unteered under the banner of St. John quite early 
in the war and came over in their hundreds to 
share in the responsible nursing of our men, both 
abroad and at home. 

V.A.D. WorJc Overseas. 

It is impossible in a general survey of V.A.D. 
work to give any real impression of all that has 
been accomplished by members in Hospitals in 
Malta, Egypt, Salonica, Russia, Serbia, Italy, Rou- 
mania and Belgium. In fact in all the Allies' 



CANADIAN V.A.D. WOEK 233 

Countries British Voluntary Aid members have 
given of their best. 

The story of those who took part in the great 
retreat in Serbia has been told so well that I need 
do no more than touch upon it, but it proved thai; 
our women, who went to the succour of these 
defeated but unconquered people, have courage 
and skill in an extraordinary measure. 

In Malta and Egypt the members have worked 
splendidly in the great hospitals, always under 
the direction of fully trained nurses. In Belgium 
they are still at work, but not in the numbers that 
went to that stricken country in the early days 
of the war, when the sudden invasion of the enemy 
devastated the fair lands and the beautiful old 
cities which were beloved not only by their own 
people, but by thousands of travellers who grieve 
to know of the wanton destruction of some of the 
most exquisite buildings in the world. 

Quite recently, however, a V.A.D. member who 
has worked in an Anglo-Belgian Hospital for 
nearly a year told me that it was so regular an 
occurrence for enemy aeroplanes to bomb the town 
that no one took any notice of them, especially as 
they seldom do any real damage. 

Newfoundland, Several members of the Ambu- 
lance Detachment of the First Newfoundland Regi- 
ment fell in Gallipoli, one of them whilst perform- 
ing a deed of greatest gallantry. 

Orange Free State, A great many ladies have 



234 BEITAIN'S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

qualified in First Aid and Home Nursing here and 
many of them have volunteered for service as 
nurses at the National Hospital. Their work has 
been excellent and has been highly commended. 
Transvaal, Voluntary Aid Detachments are 
being formed here. 

St. John Ambulance Brigade Overseas. 

Some of the latest Detachments to be utilised 
at the Front are those supplied from within the 
Empire of India for service in Mesopotamia. 
Brigade Overseas men are serving practically 
in every theatre of war where the British Forces 
are engaged. 

Peace and War Worh. 

The two were curiously joined together for me 
suddenly one night when I was doing dressings 
for men on a train which was passing down to a 
Base in France. The few of us at the Aid Post 
who had been put on to do dressings were sur- 
rounded with wounded men. It was the middle 
of a dark and stormy night and we had nothing 
better than a single lamp as light. Suddenly my 
hand was seized and in the dim light I discerned 
the uniform and badges of a R.A.M.C. Orderly, 
but the face was unfamiliar. **Are you not Miss 
Bowser? I used to work with you on Hampstead 
Heath on Bank Holidays!" 

I knew the voice in a moment. It was a St. 



CANADIAN V.A.D. WOEK 235 

John man who had regularly given up his Bank 
Holidays in order to come and do ambulance work 
at the tent on Hampstead Heath, where we always 
had a number of accidents to attend to in the 
course of the day. For years in peace time we 
had worked together, and now we met under these 
strange circumstances, both glad to have had that 
;other training in years when war was only a 
chimera. 

To be prepared for all eventualities is the secret 
which every country and every nation must realise 
is a vital one. But however well prepared may 
be an Army and a Navy, there must exist an or- 
ganisation for the supplementary care of the 
wounded and sick in war time. The civilian work 
of the St. John Ambulance Association and Bri- 
gade in England and her Empire laid a strong 
foundation, especially amongst the men, for the 
work of the Voluntary Aid Detachment scheme 
which was formulated by the War Office in 1909 
and actually started in 1910. That it is not per- 
fect no one would deny, but when it is remembered 
that it involves the administration of millions of 
pounds sterling, of the use of hundreds of thou- 
sands of articles for hospital equipment, and sends 
forth thousands of men and women, who volun- 
tarily give their services, all over the Kingdom 
and to every theatre of war, it can be said to be 
nothing but a success. The Medical authorities 
in the Services, the doctors in hospitals and the 



236 BEITAIN^S CIVILIAN VOLUNTEERS 

trained nurses agree to-day that they could not 
have managed without the help given to them by 
the Red Cross and its personnel. 

Upon the man or woman debarred by age or 
health or sex from participating in the greatest 
honour of all — fighting for one's country — the 
next best privilege which can fall upon him or 
her is to serve under the Red Cross. We who 
have been allowed to give some little aid, in what- 
soever humble a manner, know that the only alle- 
viation in the awful sorrows brought about by the 
war is that gained by working for the men who 
give their lives, and more than their lives — their 
eyesight, their limbs and their health — in the 
cause of righteousness. 



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